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CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Childhood and Early Liir£ 1 



CHAPTER IL 

LiTERAKY CaREBR ••••.«•• 16 

CHAPTER IIL 
Johnson and his Friends • • • • ^ « 53 

CHAPTER IV. 
Johnson as a Literary Dictator » . . * , 95 

CHAPTER V. 
The Closing Years ov Johnson's Life . • . • 142 

CHAPTER VL 
Johnson's Writings • . • 166 



i 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

CHAPTER L 

CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE. 

Samuel Johnson was born in Lichfield in 1709. His 
father, Michael Johnson, was a bookseller, highly respected 
by the cathedral clergy, and for a time sufficiently prosperous 
to be a magistrate of the town, and, in the year of his son's 
birth, sheriff of the county. He opened a bookstall on 
market-days at neighbouring towns, including Birmingham, 
which was as yet unable to maintain a separate bookseller. 
The tradesman often exaggerates the prejudices of the class 
whose wants he supplies, and Michael Johnson was pro- 
bably a more devoted High Churchman and Tory than 
many of the cathedral clergy themselves. He reconciled 
himself with difficulty to taking the oaths against the 
exiled dynasty. He was a man of considerable mental 
and physical power, but tormented by hypochondriacal 
tendencies. His son inherited a share both of his constitu- 
tion and of his principles. Long afterwards Samuel asso- 
ciated with his childish days a faint but solemn recollection 
of a lady in diamonds and long black hood. The lady 
1* • 



2 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

was Queen Anne, to whom, in compliance with a super- 
Btition just dying a natural death, he had heen taken hy ^ 
his mother to be touched for the king's evil. The touch i' 
was ineffectual. Perhaps, as Boswell suggested, he ought to I 
have heen presented to the genuine heirs of the Stuarts in i 
Rome. Disease and superstition had thus stood by Ida [ 
cradle, and they never quitted him during life. The de- ;' 
mon of hypochondria was always lying in wait for him, 
and could be exorcised for a time only by hard work or i' 
social excitement. Of this we shall hear enough ; but it 
may be as well to sum up at once some of the physical 
characteristics which marked him through life and greatly t 
influenced his career. 

The disease had scarred and disfigured features other- 
wise regular and always impressive. It had seriously f 
injured his eyes, entirely destroying, it seems, the sight of; 
one. He could not, it is said, distinguish a friend's face 'J 
half a yard off, and pictures were to him meaningless 
patches, in which he could never see the resemblance to 
their objects. The statement is perhaps exaggerated ; for 
he could see enough to condemn a portrait of himself. J! 
He expressed some annoyance when Eeynolds had painted ^ 
him with a pen held close to his eye ; and protested that : 
he would not be handed down to posterity as " blinking ; 
Sam." It seems that habits of minute attention atoned in | 
some degree fur this natural defect. Eoswell tells us how I 
Johnson once corrected him as to the precise shape of a i 
mountain ; and Mrs. Thrale says that he was a close and ( 
exacting critic of ladies' dress, even to the accidental i 
position of a riband. He could even lay down aesthetical 
canons upon such matters. He reproved her for wearing 
a dark dress as unsuitable to a " little creature." " What," 
he asked, " have not all insects gay colours ? " His insen- 



ji.] OHILDHOOB AND EARLY LIFE. 8 

feibUity to music was even more pronounced than his dul- 
lness of sight. On hearing it said, in praise of a musical 
(performance, that it was in any case difficult, his feeling 
jcomment was, " I wish it had been impossible ! " 
j The queer convulsions by which he amazed all beholders 
were probably connected with his disease, though he and 
Eeynolds ascribed them simply to habit. When entering 
a doorway with his blind companion. Miss Williams, he 
would suddenly desert her on the step in order to '* whirl 
and twist about " in strange gesticulations. The perform- 
ance partook of the nature of a superstitious ceremonial. 
He would stop in a street or the middle of a room to g y 
through it correctly. Once he collected a laughing mob 
in Twickenham meadows by his antics ; his hands imitat- 
ing the motions of a jockey riding at full speed and his feet 
twisting in and out to make heels and toes touch alter- 
nately. He presently sat down and took out a Grciius 
DeVeritate, over which he " seesawed " so vioTently that 
the mob ran back to see what was the matter. Once in 
such a fit he suddenly twisted off the shoe of a lady who 
Bat by him. Sometimes he seemed to be obeying some 
hidden impulse, which commanded him to touch every post 
in a street or tread on the centre of every paving-stone^ 
and would return if his task had not been accurately 
performed. 

In spite of such oddities, he was not only possessed 
of physical power corresponding to his great height and 
massive stature, but was something of a proficient at ath- 
letic exercises. He was conversant with the theory, at 
least, of boxing ; a knowledge probably acquired from an 
uncle who kept the ring at Smithfield for a year, and was 
never beaten in boxing or wrestling. His constitutional 
fearlessness would have made him a formidable antagonist 



4 SAMtJEL JOHNSOi^. [chaI* 

Hawkins describes the oak staff, six feet in length and ini 
creasing from one to three inches in diameter, which lay ready 
to his hand when he expected an attack from Macpherson 
of Ossian celebrity. Once he is said to have taken up si 
chair at the theatre upon which a man had seated himself^ 
during his temporary absence, and to have tossed it and!? 
its occupant bodily into the pit. He would swim intoij 
pools said to be dangerous, beat huge dogs into peace,;, 
climb trees, and even run races and jump gates. Once at 
least he went out foxhunting, and though he despised the' 
amusement, was deeply touched by the complimentary i 
assertion that he rode as well as the most illiterate fellowr 
in England. Perhaps the most whimsical of his perform- 
ances was when, in his fifty-fifth year, he went to the top 
of a high hill with his friend Langton. " I have not had r 
a roll for a long time," said the great lexicographer sud 
denly, and, after deliberately emptying his pockets, he'f 
laid himself parallel to the edge of the hill, and descended, 
turning over and over till he came to the bottom. We 
may believe, as Mrs. Thrale remarks upon his jumping i 
over a stool to show that he was not tired by his hunting, ^ 
that his performances in this kind were so strange and 1 
uncouth that a fear for the safety of his bones quenched 
the spectator's tendency to laugh. 

In such a strange case was imprisoned one of the most i 
vigorous intellects of the time. Yast strength hampered \] 
by clumsiness and associated with grievous disease, deep I 
and massive powers of feeling limited by narrow though 5 
acute perceptions, were characteristic both of soul and i 
body. These peculiarities were manifested from his early n 
infancy. Miss Seward, a typical specimen of the pro- |; 
xincial precieuse^ attempted to trace them in an epitaph |i 
which he was said to have written at the age of three. i 



'i ij CHILDHOOD AND EAELY LIFJBJ. 6 

Here lies good master duck 

Whom Samuel Johnson trod on ; 

If it had lived, it had been good luck, 
For then we had had an odd one. 

I The verses, however, were really made by his father, 
who passed them off as the child's, and illustrate nothing 
but the paternal vanity. In fact the boy was regarded 
as something of an infant prodigy. His great powers of 
memory, characteristic of a mind singularly retentive of 
all impressions, were early developed. He seemed to learn 
by intuition. Indolence, as in his after life, alternated 
with brief efforts of strenuous exertion. His want of sight 
prevented him from sharing in the ordinary childish sports ; 
and one of his great pleasures was in reading old romances 
— a taste which he retained through life. Boys of this 
temperament are generally despised by their fellows; but 
Johnson seems to have had the power of enforcing the 
respect of his companions. Three of the lads used to come 
for him in the morning and carry him in triumph to school, 
seated upon the shoulders of one and supported on each 
side by his companions. 

After learning to read at a dame-school, and from a 
certain Tom Brown, of whom it is only recorded that he 
published a spelling-book and dedicated it to the Universe, 
young Samuel was sent to the Lichfield Grammar School, 
and was afterwards, for a short time, apparently in the 
character of pupil-teacher, at the school of Stourbridge, in 
Worcestershire. A good deal of Latin was '* whipped into 
him," and though he complained of the excessive severity 
of two of his teachers, he was always a believer in the 
virtues of the rod. A child, he said, who is flogged, *'gets 
his task, and' there's an end on't ; whereas by exciting 
emulation and comparisons of superiority, you lay thj 



6 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

foundations of lasting mischief; you make brothers and 
sisters hate each other." In practice, indeed, this stern 
disciplinarian seems to have been specially indulgent to 
children. The memory of his own sorrows made him 
value their happiness, and he rejoiced greatly when he at 
last persuaded a schoolmaster to remit the old-fashioned 
holiday-task. 

Johnson left school at sixteen and spent two years at 
home, probably in learning his father's business. This 
seems to have been the chief period of his studies. Long 
afterwards he said that he knew almost as much at eighteen 
as he did at the age of fifty- three — the date of the remark. 
His father's shop would give him many opportunities, and 
he devoured what came in his way with the undiscrimi- 
nating eagerness of a young student. His intellectual 
resembled his physical appetite. He gorged books. He 
tore the hearts out of them, but did not study systemati- 
cally. Do you read books through 1 he asked indignantly 
of some one who expected from him such supererogatory 
labour. His memory enabled him to accumulate great 
stores of a desultory and unsystematic knowledge. Some- 
how he became a fine Latin scholar, though never first- 
rate as a Grecian. The direction of his studies was partly 
determined by the discovery of a folio of Petrarch, lying 
on a shelf where he was looking for apples ; and one of his 
earliest literary plans, never carried out, was an edition of 
Politian, with a history of Latin poetry from the time of 
Petrarch. When he went to the University at the end of 
this period, he was in possession of a very unusual amount 
of reading. 

Meanwhile he was beginning to feel the pressure of \i 
poverty. His father's affairs were probably getting into 
disorder. One anecdote — it is one which it is difficult 



I.] CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE. 1 

to read without emotion — refers to this period Many 
years afterwards, Johnson, worn by disease and the hard 
struggle of life, was staying at Lichfield, where a few old 
friends still survived, but in which every street must have 
revived the memories of the many wbo bad long since 
gone over to the majority. He was missed one morning 
at breakfast, and did not return till supper-time. Then 
he told bow his time had been passed. On that day fifty 
years before, his father, confined by illness, had begged him 
to take his place to sell books at a stall at Uttoxeter. Pride 
made him refuse. " To do away with the sin of this dis- 
obedience, I this day went in a post-chaise to Uttoxeter, 
and going into the market at the time of high business, 
uncovered my head and stood with it bare an hour before 
the stall which my father had formerly used, exposed to 
the sneers of the standers-by and the inclemency of the 
weather ; a penance by which I trust I have propitiated 
Heaven for this only instance, I believe, of contumacy to 
my father." If the anecdote illustrates the touch of 
superstition in Johnson's mind, it reveals too that sacred 
depth of tenderness which ennobled his character, ^o 
repentance can ever wipe out the past or make it be as 
though it had not been ; but the remorse of a fine cha- 
racter may be transmuted into a permanent source of 
nobler views of life and the world. 

There are difficulties in determining the circumstances 
and duration of Johnson's stay at Oxford. He began 
residence at Pembroke College in 1728. It seems pro- 
bable that he received some assistance from a gentle- 
man whose son took him as companion, and from the 
clergy of Lichfield, to w^hom his father was known, 
and who were aware of the son's talents. Possibly 
his college assisted him during part of the time. 'It 



8 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

is certain that he left without taking a degree, 
though he probahly resided for nearly three years. It 
is certain, also, that his father^s bankruptcy made hit 
stay difficult, and that the period must have been one of 
trial. 

The effect of the Oxford residence upon Johnson's mind 
was characteristic. The lad already suffered from the 
attacks of melancholy, which sometimes drove bim to the 
borders of insanity. At Oxford, Law's Serious Call 
gave him the strong religious impressions which remained 
through life. But he does not seem to have been regarded . 
as a gloomy or a religious youth by his contemporaries. : 
A\'li LU told in after years that he had been described as a 
" gay and frolicsome fellow," he replied, " All ! sir, I was 
mad and violent. It was bitterness which they mistook 
for frolic. I was miserably poor, and I thought to fight 
my way by my literature and my wit ; so I disregarded 
all power and all authority." Though a hearty supporter^ 
of authority in principle, Johnson was distinguished: 
through life by the strongest spirit of personal indepen-r 
dence and self-respect. He held, too, the sound doctrine, 
deplored by his respectable biographer Hawkins, that the 
scholar's life, like the Christian's, levelled all distinctions 
of rank. When an officious benefactor put a pair of new 
shoes at his door, he threw them away with indignation. 
He seems to have treated his tutors with a contempt which 
Boswell politely attributed to *^ great fortitude of mind,*' 
but Johnson himself set down as ^' stark insensibility." 
The life of a poor student is not, one may fear, even yet 
exempt from much bitterness, and in those days the 
position was far more servile than at present. The ser- 
vitors and sizars had much to bear from richer companiona, 
A proud melancholy lad, conscious of great powers, had« 



t 



lA 



I.] - CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE. 9 

to meet with hard rebuffs, and tried to meet them by 
returning scorn for scorn. 

Such distresses, however, did not shake Johnson's 
rooted Toryism. He fully imbibed, if he did not already 
share, the strongest prejudices of the place, and his misery 
never produced a revolt against the system, though it may 
have fostered insolence to individuals. Three of the most 
' eminent men with whom Johnson came in contact in later 
I life, had also been students at Oxford. Wesley, his senior 
I by six years, was a fellow of Lincoln whilst Johnson was 
an undergraduate, and was learning at Oxford the neces- 
sity of rousing his countrymen from the religious lethargy 
into which they had sunk. *'Have not pride and 
haughtiness of spirit, impatience, and peevishness, sloth 
and indolence, gluttony and sensuality, and even a pro- 
verbial uselessness been objected to us, perhaps not always 
by our enemies nor wholly without ground ? " So said 
Wesley, preaching before the University of Oxford in 1744, 
and the words in his mouth imply more than the preacher's 
formality. Adam Smith, Johnson's junior by fourteen 
years, was so impressed by the utter indifference of Oxford 
\ authorities to their duties, as to find in it an admirable 
iUustration of the consequences of the neglect of the true 
principles of supply and demand implied in the endow- 
ment of learning. Gibbon, his junior by twenty-eight 
years, passed at Oxford the " most idle and unprofitable " 
months of his whole life ; and was, he said, as willing to 
i disclaim the university for a mother, as she could be to 
i renounce him for a son. Oxford, as judged by these men, 
ij. was remarkable as an illustration of the spiritual and 
•j intellectual decadence of a body which at other times has 
. been a centre of great movements of thought. Johnson, 
I though his experience was rougher than any of the three. 



I 



10 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cha.p 

loved Oxford as though she had not heen a harsh step» 
mother to his youth. Sir, he said fondly of his college, 
** we are a nest of singing-birds." Most of the strains are 
now pretty well forgotten, and some of them must at all 
times have heen such as we scarcely associate with the 
nightingale.. Johnson, however, cherished his collego. 
friendsliipp, delighted in paying visits to his old university, 
and was deeply touched by the academical honours by ■ 
which Oxford long afterwards recognized an eminence 
scarcely fostered by its protection. Far from sharing the r 
doctrines of Adam Smith, he only regretted that the 
univeisities were not richer, and expressed a desire which 
will be understood by advocates of the ^^ endowment of.' 
research," that there were many places of a thousand a'^ 
year at Oxford. 

On leaving the University, in 1731; the world was all 
before him. His father died in the end of the year, and 
Johnson's whcle immediate inheritance was twenty 
pounds. Where was he to turn for daily bread ? Even ^ 
in those days, most gates were barred with gold and; 
opened but to golden keys. The greatest chance for a poor 
man was probably through the Church. The career of i 
Warburton, who ros^- from a similar position to a bishopric \ 
might have been rivalled by Johnson, and his connexions I 
with Lichfield might, one would suppose, have helped 
him to a start. It would be easy to speculate upon causes 
which might have hindered such a career. In later life, he 
more than once refused to take orders upon the promise 
of a living. Johnson, as we know him, was a man of 
the world ; though a religious mein of the world. Ho 
represents the secular rather than the ecclesiastical type. 
80 far as his mode of teaching goes, he is rather a disciple 
of Socrates than of St. Paul or Wesley. According to 



ji.] CHILDHOOD AND EAELY LIFE. H 

; him, a '^ tavern-chair " was " the throne of human felicity," 
j and supplied a better arena than the pulpit for the utterance 
liof his message to mankind. And, though his external 
ij circumstances doubtless determined his method, there was 
I much in his character which made it congenial. Johnson's 
I religious emotions were such as to make habitual reserve 
I almost a sanitary necessity. They were deeply coloured 
I by his constitutional melancholy. Fear of death and hell 
; were prominent in his personal creed. To trade upon his 
I feelings like a charlatan would have been abhorrent to his 
masculine character ; and to give them full and frequent 
utterance like a genuine teacher of mankind would have 
been to imperil his sanity. If he had gone through the 
j excitement of a Methodist conversion, he would probably 
j have ended his days in a madhouse. 

j Such considerations, however, were not, one may guess, 
distinctly present to Johnson himself; and the offer of a 
college fellowship or of private patronage might probably 
have altered his career. He might have become a learned 
recluse or a struggling Parson Adams. College fellowships 
were less open to talent then than now, and patrons were 
never too propitious to the uncouth giant, who had to force 
his way by sheer labour, and fight for his own hand. Ac- 
cordingly, the young scholar tried to coin his brains into 
money by the most depressing and least hopeful of employ- 
I ments. By becoming an usher in a school, he could at least 
' turn his talents to account with little delay, and that was 
the most pressing consideration. By one schoolmaster he 
was rejected on the ground that his infirmities would excite 
the ridicide of the boys. Under another he passed some 
months of " complicated misery," and could never think 
of the school without horror and aversion. Finding this 
situation intolerable, he settled in Birmingham, in 1733,^ 
B 



1 



! 



12 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cha:, 

to he near an old schoolfellow, named Hector, wlio w^ 
apparently beginning to practise as a surgeon. JohnsOj 
seems to have had some acquaintances among the con,: 
fortable families in the neighbourhood ; but his means <\^ 
living are obscure. Some small literary work came in hj, 
way. He contributed essays to a local paper, and translate^ 
a book of Travels in Abyssinia. For this, his first publics 
tion, he received five guineas. In 1734 he made certai 
overtures to Cave, a London publisher, of the result c 
which I shall have to speak presently. For the present i 
is pretty clear that the great problem of self-support ha< 
been very inadequately solved. 

Having no money and no prospects, Johnson naturalli 
married. The attractions of the lady were not ver; 
manifest to others than her husband. She was th|; 
widow of a Birmingham mercer named Porter. Her ag . 
at the time (1735) of the second marriage was forty-eight 
the bridegroom being not quite twenty-six. The biq^ 
grapher's eye was not fixed upon Johnson till after hii 
wife's death, and we have little in the way of authentil 
description of her person and character. Garrick, wh^ 
had known her, said that she was very fat, with cheek 
coloured both by paint and cordials, flimsy and fantastic ^ 
in dress and affected in her manners. She is said to hav< ^ 
treated her husband with some contempt, adopting th^ 
airs of an antiquated beauty, which he returned bj 
elaborate deference. Garrick used his wonderful power. » 
of mimicry to make fun of the uncouth caresses of the i 
husband, and the courtly Beauclerc used to provoke th( ' 
smiles of his audience by repeating Johnson's assertioi^ 
that *'it was a love-match on both sides." One incidenjj 
of the wedding-day was ominous. As the newl}- married 
couple rode back from church, Mrs. Johnson showed he). 



^.] CHILDHOOD AND EARLY LIFE. 13 

Spirit by reproaching her husband for riding too fast, and 
■then for lagging behind. Eesolved " not to be made the 
tiave of caprice," he pushed on briskly till he was fairly 
tout of sight. When she rejoined him, as he, of course, 
jtook care thai she should soon do, she was in tears. Mrs. 
Johnson apptirently knew how to regain supremacy ; but, 
^at any rate, Johason loved her devotedly during life, and 
%lung to her mCii. ory during a widowhood of more than 
ihirty years, as fondly as if they had been the most 
^'jpattern hero and hei ■)ine of romantic fiction. 
^ Whatever Mrs. JcLnson's charms, she seems to have 
been a woman of good cense and some literary judgment. 
'iTohnson's grotesque appoarance did not prevent her from 
^saying to her daughter on their first introduction, " This is 
'ihe most sensible man I e i>3r met." Her praises were, we 
^|nay believe, sweeter to hin: than those of the severest 
jritics, or the most fervent ol j)ersonal flatterers. Like all 
^^oodmen, Johnson loved good k omen, and liked to have on 
' land a flirtation or two, as wara as might be within the 
' wunds of due decorum. But nothing afiected his fidelity 
^|o his Letty or displaced her imaje in his mind. He 
'femembered her in many solemn prayers, and such words 
& ^'this was dear Letty 's book :" or, "this was a prayer 
Ivhich dear Letty was accustomed to 3ay," were found 
Pjrritten by him in many of her books of devotion. 
' Mrs. Johnson had one other recommendation — a fortune, 
'^iamely, of £800 — little enough, even then, as a provision 
'^!or the support of the married pair, but enough to help 
lohnson to make a fresh start. In 1736, there appeared 
^^jn advertisement in the GentlemarCs Magazine, "At 
'^Edial, near Lichfield, in Stafl'ordshire, young gentlemen 
' lie boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages by 
'^Jemuel Johnson," If, as seems probable, Mrs. Johnson'? 



14 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [char 

money supplied the funds for this venture, it was an 
unlucky speculation. 

Johnson was not fitted to be a pedagogue. Success in thai 
profession implies skill in the management of pupils, but 
perhaps still more decidedly in the management of parents. 
Johnson had little qualifications in either way. As s 
teacher he would probably have been alternately despotic? 
and over-indulgent ; and, on the other hand, at a single 
glance the rough Dominie Sampson would be enough tc 
frighten the ordinary parent off his premises. Very few 
pupils came, and they seem to have profited little, if a story 
as told of two of his pupils refers to this time. After some 
months of instruction in English history, he asked them 
who had destroyed the monasteries 1 One of them gave no 
answer ; the other Teplied " Jesus Christ." Johnson, how- 
ever, could boast of one eminent pupil in David Garrick, 
though, by Garrick's account, his master was of little service 
except as affording an excellent mark for his early powers oi 
ridicule. The school, or " academy," failed after a year and 
a half ; and Johnson, once more at a loss for employment, 
resolved to try the great experiment, made so often and sc 
often unsuccessfully. He left Lichfield to seek his fortune 
in London. Garrick accompanied him, and the two 
brought a common letter of introduction to the master ol 
an academy from Gilbert Walmsley, registrar of the Pre- 
rogative Court in Lichfield. Long afterwards Johnson 
took an opportunity in the Lives of the Poets, of expressing 
his warm regard for the memory of his early friend, to 
whom he had been recommended by a community oi 
literary tastes, in spite of party differences and great 
inequality of age. Walmsley says in his letter, that " one 
Johnson " is about to accompany Garrick to London, in 
order to tiy his fate with a tragedy and get himself em- 



ji.] CHlLDHOOt) AND EAELY LiFIi IS 

I ployed in translation. Johnson, he adds, " is a very good 
I scholar and poet, and I have great hopes will turn out a 
jfine tragedy writer." 

J The letter is dated March 2nd, 1737. Before recording 
jwhat is known of his early career thus started, it wiU be 
j well to take a glance at the general condition of the pro- 
^1 fession of liter^^^Mjve in England at this period. 



'I 



^^ 8AMUEL JOHNSON. LcHAt 



CHAPTER n. 

LITERART OABEEB. 

^^ No man but a blockhead," said Johnson, " ever wrote 
except for money." The doctrine is, of course, perfectly, 
outrageous, and specially calculated to shock people who. 
like to keep it for their private use, instead of proclaiming 
it in public. But it is a good expression of that huge con-; 
tempt for the foppery of high-flown sentiment which, as ia 
not uncommon with Johnson, passes into something which 
would be cynical if it were not half-humorous. In this o 
case it implies also the contempt of the professional for 
the amateur. Johnson despised gentlemen who dabbled^ 
in his craft, as a man whose life is devoted to music ori 
painting despises the ladies and gentlemen who treat those 
arts as fashionable accomplishments. An author was, 
according to him, a man who turned out books as a brick- 
layer turns out houses or a tailor coats. So long as he ; 
supplied a good article and got a fair price, he was a fool , 
to grumble, and a humbug to affect loftier motives. 

Johnson was notthe first professional author, in this sense, 
but perhaps the first man who made the profession respect- 
able. The principal habitat of authors, in his age, was 
Grub Street— a region which, in later years, has ceased to 
be ashamed of itself, and has adopted the more pretentious , 



|L] LITERARY CAREER. 17 

I 

jiame Bohemia. The original Grub Street, it is said, first 
})ecame associated with authorship during the increase 
|)f pamphlet literature, produced by the civil wars. Fox, 
the martyrologist, was one of its original inhabitants. 
jA^nother of its heroes was a certain Mr. Welby, of whom 
the sole record is, that he " lived there forty years without 
being seen of any." In fact, it was a region of holes and 
jcorners, calculated to illustrate that great advantage of 
[London life, which a friend of Boswell's described by say- 
ing, that a man could there be always " close to his bur- 
|row." The " burrow " which received the luckless wight, 
(was indeed no pleasant refuge. Since poor Green, in the 
learliest generation of dramatists, bought his " groat'sworth 
iof wit with a million of repentance," too many of his 
brethren had trodden the path which led to hopeless 
misery or death in a tavern brawl. The history of men 
who had to support themselves by their pens, is a record 
of almost universal gloom. The names of Spenser, of 
Butler, and of Otway, are enough to remind us that even 
warm contemporary recognition was not enough to raise 
an author above the fear of dying in want of necessaries. 
The two great dictators of literature, Ben Jonson in the 
earlier and Dryden in the later part of the century, only 
kept their heads above water by help of the laureate's pit- 
tance, though reckless imprudence, encouraged by the 
precarious life, was the cause of much of their sufferings. 
Patronage gave but a fitful resource, and the author could 
hope at most but an occasional crust, flung to him from 
better provided tables. 

In the happy days of Queen Anne, it is true, there had 

been a gleam of prosperity. Many authors, Addison, 

Congreve, Swift, and others of less name, had won by 

iheir pens not only temporary profits but pennaneni 

2 



18 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cuap.; 

places. The class which came into power at the Eevolu-^« 
tion was willing for a time, to share some of the publico 
patronage with men distinguished for intellectual emi« 
nence. Patronage was liberal when the funds came outb 
of other men's pockets. But, as the system of party 1^ 
government developed, it soon became evident that thisl 
involved a waste of power. There were enough political' 
partisans to absorb all the comfortable sinecures to bei 
had ; and such money as was still spent upon literature, 
was given in return for services equally degrading to giver* 
and receiver. N'or did the patronage of literature reach! 
the poor inhabitants of Grub Street. Addison's poetical 
power might suggest or justify the gift of a place from'' 
his elegant friends ; but a man like De Foe, who really^ 
looked to his pen for great part of his daily subsistence,!^ 
was below the region of such prizes, and was obliged in later' 
years not only to write inferior books for money, but to 
sell himself and act as a spy upon his fellows: One great 
man, it is true, made an independence by literature. Pope 
received some £8000 for his translation of Homer, by the 
then popular mode of subscription — a kind of compromise^ 
between the systems of patronage and public support. But'i 
his success caused little pleasure in Grub Street. JS'o love 
was lost between the poet and the dwellers in this dismal' 
region. Pope was its deadliest enemy, and carried on an m4 
ternecine warfare with its inmates, which has enriched our^ 
language with a great satire, but which wasted his powers 
upon low objects, and tempted him into disgraceful artifices. 
The life of the unfortunate victims, pilloried in the Dun-\ 
ciad and accused of the unpardonable sins of poverty and' 
dependence, was too often one which might have extorted 
fympathy even from a thin-skinned poet and critic. 
Illustrations of the manners and customs of that Gmb 



jfL] 



LITERARY CAREER. 19 



iStreet of which Johnson was to become an inmate are only 
ijtoo abundant. The best writers of the day could tell of 
Ihardships endured in that dismal region. Eichardson 
jjwent on the sound principle of keeping his shop that his 
shop might keep him. But the other great novelists of 
the century have painted from life the miseries of an 
author^s existence. Fielding, Smollett, and Goldsmith 
have described the poor wretches with a vivid force which 
gives sadness to the reflection that each of those great men 
was drawing upon his own experience, and that they each 
died in distress. The Case of Authors by Profession 
to quote the title of a pamphlet by Ealph, was indeed a 
i wretched one, when the greatest of their number had an 
incessant struggle to keep the wolf from the door. The 
life of an author resembled the proverbial existence of the 
flying-fish, chased by enemies in sea and in air ; he only 
escaped from the slavery of the bookseller's garret, to fly 
from the bailiff or rot in the debtor's ward or the spunging- 
house. Many strange half-pathetic and half-ludicrous anec- 
dotes survive to recall the sorrows and the recklessness of 
the luckless scribblers who^ like one of Johnson's acquain- 
tance, " lived in London and hung loose upon society." 

There was Samuel Eoyse, for example, whose poem on 
the Deity is quoted with high praise by Fielding. Once 
Johnson had generously exerted himself for his comrade in 
misery, and collected enough money by sixpences to get 
the poet's clothes out of pawn. Two days afterwards, 
Boyse had spent the money and was found in bed, covered 
only with a blanket, through two holes in which he passed 
his arms to write. Boyse, it appears, when still in this posi- 
tion would lay out his last half-guinea to buy truffles and 
mushrooms for his last scrap of beef. Of another scribbler 
Johnson said, " I honour Derrick for his strengtli of mindf 



20 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap* 

One night when Floyd (another poor authoi) was wander- f 
ing about the streets at night, he found Derrick fast asleep if 
upon a bulk. Upon being suddenly awaked, Derrick 
started up ; * My dear Floyd, I am sorry to see you in this H 
destitute state ; will you go home with me to my lodgings?' " p 
Authors in such circumstances might be forced into such : 
a wonderful contract as that which is reported to have 
been drawn up by one Gardner with Eolt and Christopher 
Smart. They were to write a monthly miscellany, sold at : 
sixpence, and to have a third of the profits ; but they were 
to write nothing else, and the contract was to last for n 
ninety-nine years. Johnson himself summed up the trade 
upon earth by the lines in which Virgil describes the 
entrance to hell ; thus translated by Dryden : — 

Just in tlie gate and in the jaws of hell, 

Eevengeful cares and sullen sorrows dwelL 

And pale diseases and repining age, 

Want, fear, and famine's unresisted rage : 

Here toils and Death and Death's half-brother. Sleep — 

Forms, terrible to view, their sentry keep. 

" Now," said Johnson, " almost all these apply exactly i 
to an author; these are the concomitants of a printing- 
house." 

Judicious authors, indeed, were learning how to make 
literature pay. Some of them belonged to the class who 
understood the great truth that the scissors are a very 
superior implement to the pen considered as a tool of ] 
literary trade. Such, for example, was that respectable 
Dr. Jolm Campbell, whose parties Johnson ceased to fre- 
quent lest Scotchmen should say of any good bits of work, 
" Ay, ay, he has learnt this of Cawmell." Campbell, he said 
quaintly, was a good man, a pious man. " I am afraid he 

1 



II.] LITEEABY CAEEEE. 21 

jhas not been in the inside of a churcli for many years ; 
ijbut he never passes a church without pulling off his hat, 
ijlhis shows he has good principles," — of which in fact there 
JBeems to he some less questionable evidence. Campbell sup- 
jported himself by writings chiefly of the Encyclopedia or 
iGazetteer kind ; and became, still in Johnson's phrase, **the 
irichest author that ever grazed the common of literature." 
!a more singular and less reputable character was that 
jimpudent quack, Sir John Hill, who, with his insolent 
lattacks upon the Eoyal Society, pretentious botanical and 
jmedical compilations, plays, novels, and magazine articles, 
|has long sunk into utter oblivion. It is said of him that 
!he pursued every branch of literary quackery with greater 
jcontempt of character than any man of his time, and that 
he made as much as £1500 in a year; — three times as 
much, it is added, as any one writer ever made in the 
same period. 

The political scribblers — the Arnalls, Gordons, Trench- 
ards, Guthries, Ealphs, and Amhersts, whose names meet 
us in the notes to the Dunciad and in contemporary 
pamphlets and newspapers — form another variety of the 
class. Their general character may be estimated from 
Johnson's classification of the " Scribbler for a Party" with 
the " Commissioner of Excise," as the " two lowest of all 
human beings." " Ealph," says one of the notes to the 
Dunciad, *^ ended in the common sink of all such writers, 
a political newspaper." The prejudice against such em- 
ployment has scarcely died out in our own day, and may 
be still traced in the account of Pendennis and his friend 
Warrington. People who do dirty work must be paid for 
it ; and the Secret Committee which inquired into Wal- 
pole's administr.ition reported that in ten years, from 1731 
to 1741, a sum of £50,077 18«. had been paid to writei** 



22 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cbav. J 

f 

and printers of newspapers. Arnall, now remembered i 
chiefly by Pope's line, — [ 

Spirit of Arnall, aid me whilst Ilie ! P 

had received, in four years, .£10,997 65. Sd. of this amount, t 
The more successful writers might look to pensions or pre- j. 
ferment. Francis, for example, the translator of Horace, [ 
and the father, in all probability, of the most formidable 
of the whole tribe of such literary gladiators, received, it i 
is said, 900Z. a year for his work, besides being appointed | 
to a rectory and the chaplaincy of Chelsea. i 

It must, moreover, be observed that the price of literary 
work was rising during the century, and that, in the latter' 
half, considerable sums were received by successful writers. ; 
Eeligious as well as dramatic literature had begun to be( 
commercially valuable. Baxter, in the previous century, 
made from 601. to SOL sl year by his pen. The copyright 
of Tillotson's Sermons was sold, it is said, upon his death 
for £2500. Considerable sums were made by the plan o^ 
publishing by subscription. It fs said that 4600 peoplel- 
subscribed to the two posthumous volumes of Conybeare'ai 
Sermons, A few poets trod in Pope's steps. Young made 
more than £3000 for the Satires called the Universal Pas-^i 
sion, published, I think, on the same plan ; and the Duke 
of Wharton is said, though the report is doubtful, to havej 
given him £2000 for the same work. Gay made £100di 
by his Poems ; £400 for the copyright of the BeggarU] 
Opera, and three times as much for its second part, Polly, 
Among historians, Hume seems to have received £700 a 
volume ; Smollett made £2000 by his catchpenny rival 
publication ; Henry made £3300 by his history ; and 
Robertson, after the booksellers had made £6000 by hii 
History of Scotland^ sold his Charles V. for £4500 



^] LITERARY CAREER. 23 

i 

'A.mongst the novelists, Feilding received £700 for Tom 
Jones and £1000 for Amelia ; Sterne, for the second edi- 
!tion of the first part of Tristram Shandy and for two 
,|additional volumes, received £650 ; besides which Lord 
JTauconberg gave him a living (most inappropriate acknow- 
jlledgment, one would say !), and Warburton a purse of gold, 
f Goldsmith received 60 guineas for the immortal Vicar, a 
'fair price, according to Johnson, for a work by a then 
ij unknown author. By each of his plays he made about 
£500, and for the eight volumes of his Natural History 
he received 800 guineas. Towards the end of the century, 
Mrs. EadclifFe got £500 for the Mysteries of Udolpho^ 
land £800 for her last work, the Italian. Perhaps the 
largest sum given for a single book was £6000 paid to 
Hawkesworth for his account of the South Sea Expedi- 
tions. Home Tooke received from £4000 to £5000 for 
the Diversions ofPurley ; and it is added by his biographer, 
though it seems to be incredible, that Hayley received no 
less than £11,000 for the Life of Cowper, This was, of 
course, in the present century, when we are already 
approaching the period of Scott and Byron. 

Such sums prove that some few authors might achieve 
independence by a successful work; and it is well to 
remember them in considering Johnson's life from the 
business point of view. Though he never grumbled at the 
booksellers, and on the contrary, was always ready to de- 
fend them as liberal men, he certainly failed, whether from 
carelessness or want of skill, to turn them to as much 
profit as many less celebrated rivals. Meanwhile, pecu- 
niary success of this kind was beyond any reasonable hopes. 
A man who has to work like his own dependent Levett, 
and to make the " modest toil of every day" supply " the 
wants of every day," must discount his talents until hfe 



24 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chat. 

can secure leisure for some more sustained effort. Johnson, 
coming up from the country to seek for work, could have 
but a slender prospect of rising above the ordinary level of 
his Grub Street companions and rivals. One publisher 
to whom he applied suggested to him that it would be his 
wisest course to buy a porter's knot and' carry trunks ; 
and, in the struggle which followed, Johnson must some- 
times have been tempted to regret that the advice was not 
taken. 

The details of the ordeal through which he was now 
to pass have naturally vanished. Johnson, long after- 
wards, burst into tears on recalling the trials of this period. 
But, at the time, no one was interested in noting the 
history of an obscure literary drudge, and it has not been 
described by the sufferer himself What we know is 
derived from a few letters and incidental references of 
Johnson in later days. On first arriving in London he 
was almost destitute, and had to join with Garrick in 
raising a loan of five pounds, which, we are glad to say, 
was repaid. He dined for eightpence at an ordinary : a 
cut of meat for sixpence, bread for a penny, and a penny 
to the waiter, making out the charge. One of his 
acquaintance had told him that a man might live in 
London for thirty pounds a year. Ten pounds would pay 
for clothes ; a garret might be hired for eighteen-pence a 
week ; if any one asked for an address, it was easy to reply, 
" I am to be found at such a place." Threepence laid out 
at a coff'ee-house would enable him to pass some hours a 
day in good company ; dinner might be had for sixpence, 
a bread-and-milk breakfast for a penny, and supper was 
superfluous. On clean shirt day you might go abroad and 
pay visits. This leaves a surplus of nearly one pound 
from the thirty. 



n.] LITERARY CAREER. 26 

; Jolinson, however, had a wife to support ; and to raise 
|! funds for even so ascetic a mode of existence required 
jj steady labour. Often, it seems, his purse was at the very 

I lowest ebb. One of his letters to his employer is signed 
j mpransus ; and whether or not the dinnerless condition 

II wa^; in this case accidental, or significant of absolute 
' impccuniosity, the less pleasant interpretation is not im- 
i probable. He would walk the streets all night with his 

friend, Savage, when their combined funds could not pay 
I for a lodging. One night, as he told Sir Joshua Eeynolds 
j in later years, they thus perambulated St. James's Square, 
j warming themselves by declaiming against Walpole, and 
! nobly resolved that they would stand by their country. 

Patriotic enthusiasm, however, as no one knew better 
• than Johnson, is a poor substitute for bed and supper. 
Johnson suffered acutely and made some attempts to 
escape from his misery. To the end of his life, he was 
grateful to those who had lent him a helping hand. 
'* Harry Hervey," he said of one of them shortly before 
his death, " was a vicious man, but very kind to me. If 
you call a dog Hervey, I shall love him." Pope was im- 
pressed by the excellence of his first poem, London^ 
and induced Lord Gower to write to a friend to beg Swift 
to obtain a degree for Johnson from the University of 
j Dublin. The terms of this circuitous application, curious, 
j as bringing into connexion three of the most eminent 
I men of letters of the day, prove that the youngest of 
I them was at the time (1739) in deep distress. The object of 
I the degree was to qualify Johnson for a mastership of <£60 
i a year, which would make him happy for life. He would 
I rather, said Lord Gower, die upon the road to Dublin if 
an examination were necessary, "than be starved to 
death in translating for booksellers, which has been his 
2* 



26 SAMUEL JOHNSOIS. [chap. 

only subsistence for some time past." The application 
failed, however, and the want of a degree was equally 
fatal to another application to bo admitted to practise at 
Doctor's Commons. 

Literature was thus perforce Johnson's sole support j 
and by literature was meant, for the most part, drudgery 
of the kind indicated by the phrase, " translating for book- 
sellers." While still in Lichfield, Johnson had, as I have 
said, written to Cave, proposing to become a contributor 
to the GenilemarHs Magazine, The letter was one of those 
which a modern editor receives by the dozen, and answers as 
perfunctorily as his conscience will allow. It seems, how- 
ever, to have made some impression upon Cave, and 
possibly led to Johnson's employment by him on his first 
arrival in London. From 1738 he was employed both on 
the Magazine and in some jobs of translation. 

Edward Cave, to whom we are thus introduced, was a 
man of some mark in the history of literature. Johnson 
always spoke of him with affection and afterwards wrote his 
life in complimentary terms. Cave, though a clumsy, phleg- 
matic person of little cultivation, seems to have been one 
of those men who, whilst destitute of real critical powers, 
have a certain instinct for recognizing the commercial 
value of literary wares. He had become by this time 
well-known as the publisher of a magazine which survives 
to this day. Journals containing summaries of passing 
events had already been started. Boyer's Political State 
of Greai Britain began in 1711. The Historical Regis- 
ter^ which added to a chronicle some literary notices, was |^ 
started in 1716. The Grub Street Journal was another 
journal with fuller critical notices, which first appeared in 
1730 ; and these two seem to have been superseded by the 
Oentleman's Magazine, started by Cave in the next year. 



jii,J LITEEARY CAREER. '^'^ 

I Johnson saw in it an opening for the employment of his 

jliterary talents ; and regarded its contributions with that 

jawe so natural in youthful aspirants, and at once so comic 

land pathetic to writers of a little experience. The names 

I of many of Cave's staff are preserved in a note to Hawkins. 

lOne or two of them, such as Birch and Akenside. have 
'I . . . . 

still a certain interest for students of literature ; but few 

'have heard of the great Moses Browne, who was regarded 
as the great poetical light of the magazine. Johnson 
jiooked up to him as a leader in his craft, and was 
graciously taken by Cave to an alehouse in Clerkenwell, 
where, wrapped in a horseman's coat, and '' a great bushy 
{uncombed wig,'* he saw Mr. Browne sitting at the end of 
a long table, in a cloud of tobacco-smoke, and felt the 
satisfaction of a true hero-worshipper. 

It is needless to describe in detail the literary task-work 
done by Johnson at this period, the Latin poems which 
he contributed in praise of Carve, and of Cave's friends, or 
the Jacobite squibs by which he relieved his anti-minis- 
terialist feelings. One incident of the period doubtless 
refreshed the soul of many authors, who have shared 
Campbell's gratitude to Napoleon for the sole redeeming 
action of his life — the shooting of a bookseller. Johnson 
was employed by Osborne, a rough specimen of the trade, 
to make a catalogue of the Harleian Library. Osborne 
ioffensively reproved him for neghgence, and Johnson 
[knocked him down with a folio. The book with which 
I the feat was performed (Bihlia Grceca Septuagintay fol. 
1 1594, Frankfort) was in existence in a bookseller's shop at 
j Cambridge in 1812, and should surely have been placed 
jin some safe author's museum. 

I The most remarkable of Johnson's performances as a 
jback writer deserves a brief notice. He was one of the* 
I C 



!i^ 



2^ SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap, 

first of reporters. Cave published such reports of tho'r 
debates in Parliament as were then allowed by the'' 
jealous}' of the Legislature, under the title of The Senate 
of Lilliput Johnson was the author of the debates from'^ 
!N'ov. 1740 to February 1742. Persons were employed to 
attend in the two Houses, who brought home notes of the 
speeches, which were then put into shape by Johnson. 
Long afterwards, at a dinner at Foote's, Francis (the father 
of Junius) mentioned a speech of Pitt's as the best he 
had ever read, and superior to anything in Demosthenes. 
Hereupon Johnson replied, ^' I wrote that speech in a 
garret in Exeter Street." When the company applauded 
not only his eloquence but his impartiality, Johnson 
replied, *^That is not quite true; I saved appearances 
tolerably well, but I took care that the Whig dogs should 
not have the best of it." The speeches passed for a time 
as accurate ; though, in truth, it has been proved and it \i 
easy to observe, that they are, in fact, very vague 
reflections of the original. The editors of Chesterfield's 
Works published two of the speeches, and, to Johnson's 
considerable amusement, declared that one of them re^' 
sembled Demosthenes and the other Cicero. It is plaic 
enough to the modern reader that, if so, both of the 
ancient orators must have written true Johnsonese ; and, ir 
fact, the style of the true author is often as plainly marked 
in many of these compositions as in the Rambler oi 
Rasselas, For this deception, such as it was, Johnsor 
expressed penitence at the end of his life, though he sair 
that he had ceased to write when he found that they wen 
taken as genuine. He would not be " accessory to th( 
propagation of falsehood." . • 

Another of Johnson's works which appealed in 174^ 
requires notice both for its intrin ric merit, and its auto 



I II.] LITERAEY CAREER. 29 

i 

'biographical interest. The most remarkable of his Grab- 

;j Street companions was the Eichard Savage already men- 

jtioned. Johnson's life of him written soon after his death 

jis one of his most forcible performances, and the best extant 

illustration of the life of the struggling authors of the 

jitime. Savage claimed to be the illegitimate son of the 

'^Countess of Macclesfield, who was divorced from her hus- 

jband in the year of his birth on account of her connexion 

■with his supposed father. Lord Elvers. According to the 

istory, believed by Johnson, and published without her 

|contradiction in the mother's lifetime, she not only dis- 

lavowed her son, but cherished an unnatural hatred for 

jhim. She told his father that he was dead, in order that 

he might not be benefited by the father's will ; she tried 

jto have him kidnapped and sent to the plantations ; and 

jshe did her best to prevent him from receiving a pardon 

when he had been sentenced to death for killing a man in a 

tavern brawl. However this may be, and there are reasons 

J for doubt, the story was generally believed, and caused 

much sympathy for the supposed victim. Savage was at 

one time protected by the kindness of Steele, who published 

J bis story, and sometimes employed him as a literary 

.assistant. When Steele became disgusted with him, he 

jj received generous help from the actor Wilks and from Mrs. 

[jlOldfield, to whom he had been introduced by some drama- 

jjbic efforts. Then he was taken up by Lord Tyrconnel, but 

^kbandoned by him after a violent quarrel ; he afterwards 

jflBalled himself a volunteer laureate, and received a pension 

|of 50Z. a year from Queen Caroline ; on her death he was 

. jjthrown into deep distress, and helped by a subscription 

|bo which Pope was the chief contributor, on condition of 

.Retiring to the country. Ultimately he quarrelled with hia 

^ast protectors, and ended by dying in a debtor's prison. 



30 SAMUEL JOHNSON. cchai' 1 

i 
Various poetical works, now utterly forgotten, obtained I' 

for him scanty profit. This career sufficiently reveals thef 
character. Savage belonged to the very common type of !^ 
men, who seem to employ their whole talents to throw away r 
their chances in life, and to disgust every one who offers f 
them a helping hand. He was, however, a man of some? 
talent, though his poems are now hopelessly unreadable," 
and seems to have had a singular attraction for Johnson. 
The biography is curiously marked by Johnson's constant- 
effort to put the best face upon faults, which he has too 
much love of truth to conceal. The explanation is, partly, 
that Johnson conceived himself to be avenging a victim of 
cruel ojDpression. " This mother," he says, after recording 
her vindictiveness, ^^ is still alive, and may perhaps even 
yet, though her malice was often defeated, enjoy thq 
pleasure of reflecting that the life, which she often endea- 
voured to destroy, was at last shortened by her maternal 
offices ; that though she could not transport her son to the 
plantations, bury him in the shop of a mechanic, or hasten 
the hand of the public executioner, she has yet had the 
satisfaction of embittering all his hours, and forcing hin^ 
into exigencies that hurried on his death." '] 

But it is also probable that Savage had a strong influence 
upon Johnson's mind at a very impressible part of hii 
career. The young man, still ignorant of life and full o: 
reverent enthusiasm for the literary magnates of his time' 
was impressed by the varied experience of his companion 
and, it may be, flattered by his intimacy. Savage, he sny: 
admiringly, had enjoyed great opportunities of seeing th< 
most conspicuous men of the day in their private life. H< 
was shrewd and inquisitive enough to use his opportunitie 
well. " More circumstances to constitute ^ critic on humai 
life could not easUy concur." The only plirase which survive 



In.] LITERARY CAREER. 31 

ifco justify this remark is Savage's statement about Walpole, 
jfchat " tlie whole range of his mind was from obscenity to 
politics, and from politics to obscenity." We may, how- 
jever, guess what was the special charm of the intercourse to 
.jJohnson. Savage was an expert in that science of human 
jtnature, learnt from experience not from books, upon which 
liJohnson set so high a value, and of which he was destined 
[to become the authorized expositor. There were, more- 
lover, resemblances between the two men. They were both 
ijadmired and sought out for their conversational powers. 
iSavage, indeed, seems to have lived chiefly by the people 
jhvho entertained him for talk, till he had disgusted them 
;,jby his insolence and his utter disregard of time and pro- 
jlpriety. He would, like Johnson, sit up talking beyond mid- 
finight, and next day decline to rise till dinner-time, though 
jhis favourite drink was not, like Johnson's, free from intoxi- 
{ eating properties. Both of them had a lofty pride, which 
c Johnson heartily commends in Savage, though he has diffi- 
fCulty iu palliating some of its manifestations. One of the 
g stories reminds us of an anecdote already related of John- 
^son himself. Somok clothes had been left for Savage at a 
coffeehouse by a person who, out of delicacy, concealed his 
^name. Savage, however, resented some want of ceremony, 
pjand refused to enter the house a^ain till the clothes had 
I, been removed. 

What was honourable pride in Johnson was, indeed, 
simple arrogance in Savage. He asked favours, his bio- 
jjgrapher says, without submission, and resented refusal as 
ijan insult. He had too much pride to acknowledge, not 
linot too much to receive, obligations ; enough to quarrel with 
jhis charitable benefactors, but not enough to make him rise 
j|to independence of their charity. His pension would have 
Jisuflaced to keep him, only that as soon as he received it he 



32 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

retired from the sight of all his acquaintance, and came i 
back before long as penniless as before. This conduct, i 
observes his biographer, was " very particular." It was ^ 
hardly so singular as objectionable ; and we are not sur- 1 
prised to be told that he was rather a " friend of goodness " f 
than himself a good man. In short, we may say of him as 
Beauclerk said of a friend of Boswell's that, if he had ex- 
cellent principles, he did not wear them out in practice. 

There is something quaint about this picture of a tho- ' 
rough -paced scamp, admiringly painted by a virtuous man ^ 
forced, in spite of himself, to make it a likeness, and striving/ 
in vain to make it attractive. But it is also pathetic when^ 
we remember that Johnson shared some part at least of hisi 
hero's miseries. " On a bulk, in a cellar, or in a glass-house, |i 
among thieves and beggars, was to be found the author ofi^ 
The Wanderer, the man of exalted sentiments, extensive? 
views, and curious observations ; the man whose remarks? 
on life might have assisted the statesman, whose ideas ofi 
virtue might have enlightened the moralist, whose elo-l' 
quence might have influenced senators, and whose delicacy[ 
might have polished courts." Very shocking, no doubt, 
and yet hardly surprising under the circumstances ! Tof 
us it is more interesting to remember that the author of 
the Rambler was not only a sympathizer, but a fellow- 
sujfferer with the author of the Wanderer, and shared) 
the queer " lodgings " of his friend, as Floyd shared thei 
lodgings of Derrick. Johnson happily came unscathedf 
through the ordeal which was too much for poor; 
Savage, and could boast with perfect truth in later life|' 
that ** no man, who ever lived by literature, had lived' 
more independently than I have done." It was in so 
strange a school, and under such questionable teaching that 
Johnson formed his character of the world and of the conr'' 



illj LITEEARY CAREER. 33 

I 

; duct befitting its inmates. One characteristic conclusion 

|i is indicated in the opening passage of the life. It has 

j always been observed, he says, that men eminent by nature 

I or fortune are not generally happy : " whether it be that 

; apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs 

i| are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages ; or that the general 

li lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those, 

whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, 

ha v^e been more carefully recorded because they were more 

generally observed, and have in reality been only more 

conspicuous than those of others, not more frequent or 

more severe." 

The last explanation was that which really commended 
itself to Johnson. Nobody had better reason to know 
that obscurity might conceal a misery as bitter as any that 
fell to the lot of the most eminent. The gloom due to his 
constitutional temperament was intensified by the sense that 
he and his wife were dependent upon the goodwill of a nar- 
row and ignorant tradesman for the scantiest maintenance. 
How was he to reach some solid standing-ground above the 
hopeless mire of Grub Street 1 As a journeyman author 
he could make both ends meet, but only on condition ol 
incessant labour. lUness and misfortune would mean 
i 'Constant dependence upon charity or bondage to creditors. 
j To get ahead of the world it was necessary to distinguish 
I himself in some way from the herd of needy competitors. 
j He had come up from Lichfield with a play in his pocket, 
j ibut the play did not seem at present to have much chance 
j (of emerging. Meanwhile he published a poem^hich did 
;6omething to give him a general reputation. 

London — an imitation of the Third Satire of Juvenal — 
^as published in May, 1738. The plan was doubtless 
suggested by Pope's imitations of Horace, which had 



S4 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [char 

recently appeared. Though necessarily follo\ring the lines : 
of Juvenars poem, and conforming to the conventional 
fashion of the time, both in sentiment and versification, 
the poem has a biographical significance. It is indeed 
odd to find Johnson, who afterwards thought of London 
as a lover of his mistress, and who despised nothing more 
heartily than tlie cant of Eousseau and the sentimentalists, 
adopting in this poem the ordinary denunciations of the 
corruption of towns, and singing the praises of an innocent : 
country life. Doubtless, the young writer was like other 
young men, taking up a strain still imitative and artificial. 
He has a quiet smile at Sav^age in the life, because in his 
retreat to Wales, that enthusiast declared that he " could 
not debar himself from the happiness which was to be 
found in the calm of a cottage, or lose the opportunity 
of listening without intermission to the melody of the 
nightingale, which he believed was to be heard from every 
bramble, and which he did not fail to mention as a very 
important part of the happiness of a country life." In 
London^ this insincere cockney adopts Savage's view. 
Thales, who is generally supposed to represent Savage (and \ 
this coincidence seems to confirm the opinion), is to retire I 
" from the dungeons of the Strand," and to end a healthy 
life in pruning walks and twining bowers in his garden. 

There every bush with naturo^s music rings. 
There every breeze bears health upon its wings. 

Johnson had not yet learnt the value of perfect sincerity 
even in poetry. But it must also be admitted that London, 
as seen by the poor drudge from a Grub Street garret, pro- 
bably presented a prospect gloomy enough to make even 
Johnson long at times for rural solitude. The poem reflects, j 
too, the ordinary talk of the heterogeneous band of patriots, ^ 



k] LITERARY CAREER. 35 

Jacobites, and disappointed AVhigs, who were beginning 
^\,o gather enough strength to threaten Walp)le's long 
tenure of pov^er. Many references to contemporary politics 
pustrate Johnson's sympathy with the inhabitants of the 
pontemporary Cave of Adullam. 

jl This poem, as ah^eady stated, attracted Pope's notice, 
Jwho made a curious note on a scrap of paper sent with it 
|to a friend. Johnson is described as '^ a man afflicted with 
ian infirmity of the convulsive kind, that attacks him some- 
times so as to make him a sad spectacle." This seems to 
have been the chief information obtained by Pope about 
the anonymous author, of whom he had said, on first read- 
jing the poem, this man will soon be deterre. London made 
ja certain noise ; it reached a second edition in a week, and 
(attracted various patrons, among others, General Ogle- 
thorpe, celebrated by Pope, and through a long life the 
warm friend of Johnson. One line, however, in the poem 
printed in capital letters, gives the moral which was doubt- 
less most deeply felt by the author, and which did not 
lose its meaning in the years to come. This mournful 
truth, he says, — 

Is everywliere confess'd, 
Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd. 

Ten years later (in January, 1749) appeared the Vanity of 

Human Wishes, an imitation of the Tenth Satire of Juvenal. 

The difference in tone shows how deeply this and similar 

truths had been impressed upon its author in the interval. 

i Though still an imitation, it is as significant as the most 

: original work could be of Johnson's settled views of life, 

I It was written at a white heat, as indeed Johnson wrote 

j all his best work. Its strong Stoical morality, its profound 

j end melancholy illustrations of the old and ever new sen- 



36 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

timent, Vanitas VanUatum, make it perhaps the most |i 
impressive poem of the kind in the language. The lines 1; 
on the scholar's fate show that the iron had entered his ^ 
soul in the interval. Should the scholar succeed beyond f 
expectation in his labours and escape melancholy and 
disease, yet, he says, — 

Tet hope not life from grief and danger free, 

Nor think the doom of man reversed on thee ; ^ 

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes i 

And pause awhile from letters, to be wise ; ,t 

There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, i 

Toil, envy, want, the patron and the jail ; p 

See nations, slowly wise and meanly just, [^ 

To buried merit raise the tardy bust. I 

If dreams yet flatter, once again attend. \^ 
Hear Lydiat'e life and Galileo's end. 

For the " patron," Johnson had originally written thet 
"garret." The change was made after an experience of 
patronage to be presently described in connexion with 
the Dictionary. ; 

For London Johnson received ten guineas, and for the - 
Vanity of Human Wishes fifteen. Though indirectly 
valuable, as increaf^ing his reputation, such work was notL 
very profitable. The most promising career in a pecuniary 
sense was still to be found on the stage. Novelists were, 
not yet the rivals of dramatists, and many authors had 
made enough by a successful play to float them through a 
year or two. Johnson had probably been determined by:: 
his knowledge of this fact to write the tragedy of Irene. 
No other excuse at least can be given for the composition': 
of one of the heaviest and most unreadable of dramatic 
performances, interesting now, if interesting at all, solely 
as a curious example of the result of bestowing great 
powers upon a totally uncongenial task. Young men,? 



In.] LITERAEY CAEEER. 37 

; however, may be pardoned for such blunders if tlicy are 
jnot repeated, and Jolinson, though he seems to have 
I retained a fondness for his unlucky performance, never 
jindulged in play writing after leaving Lichfield. The best 
;! thing connected with the play was Johnson's retort to his 
ijfriendWalmsley, the Lichfield registrar. ''How," asked 
jWalmsley, "can you contrive to plunge your heroine into 
I deeper calamity? " " Sir," said Johnson, '^ I can put her 
into the spiritual court." Even Boswell can only say for 
I Irene that it is " entitled to the praise of superior ex- 
icellence," and admits its entire absence of dramatic power. 
I Garrick, who had become manager of Drury Lane, pro- 
I'duced his friend's work in 1749. The play was carried 
, through nine nights by Garrick's friendly zeal, so that the 
; author had his three nights' profits. For this he received 
£195 175. and for the copy he had £100. People pro- 
bably attended, as they attend modern representations of 
legitimate drama, rather from a sense of duty, than in the 
hope of pleasure. The heroine originally had to speak 
two lines with a bowstring round her neck. The situation 
produced cries of murder, and she had to go off the stage 
i aliye. The objectionable passage was removed, but Irene 
\ was on the whole a failure, and has never, I imagine, 
\ made another appearance. When asked how he felt upon 
I his ill-success, he replied " like the monument,'' and indeed 
^j he made it a principle throughout life to accept the de- 
1 cision of the public like a sensible man without murmurs. 
■I Meanwhile, Johnson was already embarked upon an 
!j undertaking of a very different kind. In 1747 he had 
!' put forth a plan for an English Dictionary, addressed 
'! at the suggestion of Dodsley, to Lord Chesterfield, then 
Secretary of State, and the great contemporary Maecenas. 
Johnson had apparently been maturing the scheme for 



38 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

some time. *' I know/' he says in the " plan," that *' tho 
work in which I engaged is generally considered as 
drudgery for the hlind, as the proper toil of artlesr^ 
industry, a book that requires neither the light of learning 
nor the activity of genius, but may be successfully per- 
formed without any higher quality than that of bearing 
burdens with dull j)atience, and beating the track of the 
alphabet with sluggish resolution." He adds in a sub- 
sarcastic tone, that although princes and statesmen had 
once thought it honourable to patronize dictionaries, he had 
considered such benevolent acts to be "prodigies, recorded 
rather to raise wonder than expectation," and he was ac- 
cordingly pleased and surprised to find that Chesterfield 
took an interest in his undertaking. He proceeds to lay 
down the general principles upon which he intends to 
frame his work, in order to invite timely suggestions and 
repress unreasonable expectations. At this time, humble 
as his aspirations might be, he took a view of the possi- 
bilities open to him which had to be lowered before the 
publication of the dictionary. He shared the illusion 
that a language might be *' fixed " by making a catalogue 
of its words. In the preface which appeared with the r 
completed work, he explains very sensibly the vanity- of 
any such expectation. Whilst all human affairs are 
changing, it is, as he says, absurd to imagine that the 
language which repeats all human thoughts and feelings 
can remain unaltered. 

A die tionary, as Johnson conceived it, was in fact work 
for a " harmless drudge," the definition of a lexicographer 
given in the book itself. Etymology in a scientific sense 
was as yet non-existent, and Johnson was not in this re- 
spect ahead of his contemporaries. To collect all the words 
in the language, to define their meanings as accurately a^' 



a.] LITERARY CAREER. 39 

might be^ to give the obvious or whimsical guesses at 
Etymology suggested by previous writers, and to append a 
gjood collection of illustrative passages was the sum of his 
ambition. Any systematic training of the historical pro- 
cesses by which a particular language had been developed 
was unknown, and of course the result could not be 
anticipated. The work, indeed, required a keen logical 
faculty of definition, and wide reading of the English 
literature of the two preceding centuries ; but it could of 
course give no play either for the higher literary faculties 
on points of scientific investigation. A dictionary in 
Johnson's sense was the highest kind of work to which a 
literary journeyman could be set, but it was still work for 
a journeyman, not for an artist. He was not adding to 
literature, but providing a useful implement for future 
men of letters. 

Johnson had thus got on hand the biggest job that 
could be well undertaken by a good workman in his 
humble craft. He was to receive fifteen hundred and 
seventy-five pounds for the whole, and he expected to 
finish it in three years. The money, it is to be observed, 
was to satisfy not only Johnson but several copyists 
employed in the mechanical part of the work. It was 
advanced by instalments, aud came to an end before the 
couclusion of the book. Indeed, it appeared when 
accounts were settled, that he had received a hundred 
pounds more than was due. He could, however, pay his 
way for the time, and would gain a reputation enough to 
ensure work in future. The period of extreme poverty 
had probably ended when Johnson got permanent employ- 
ment on the GenUemaTLS Magazine. He was not elevated 
above the need of drudgery and economy, but ho might 
at least be free from the dread of neglect. He coul4 



40 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chai. 

commaua his market — sucii as it was. The necessity of 
Eteady labour was probably unfelt in repelling his fits of 
melancholy. His name was beginning to be known, and 
men of reputation were seeking his acquaintance. In the 
winter of 1749 he formed a club, which met weekly at a 
" famous beef-steak house " in Ivy Lane. Among its 
members were Hawkins, afterwards his biographer, and 
two friends, Bathurst a physician, and Hawkesworth an 
author, for the first of whom he entertained an unusually , 
strong affection. The Club, like its more famous successor, 
gave Johnson an opportunity of displaying and improving 
his great conversational powers. He was already dreaded 
for his prowess in argument, his dictatorial manners and 
vivid flashes of wit and humour, the more effective from 
the habitual gloom and apparent heaviness of the dis- 
courser. 

The talk of this society probably suggested topics .for 
the RamhJer, which appeared at this time, and caused 
Johnson's fame to spread further beyond the literary circles 
of London. The wit and humour have, indeed, left few 
traces upon its ponderous pages, for the Rambler marks , 
the culminating period of Johnson's worst qualities of | 
style. The pompous and involved language seems indeed to i. 
be a fit clothing for the melancholy reflections which are 
its chief staple, and in spite of its unmistakable power it is i 
as heavy reading as the heavy class of lay-sermonizing to 
which it belongs. Such literature, however, is often 
strangely popular in England, and the Ramhlcr, though 
its circulation was limited, gave to Johnson his position 
as a great practical moralist. He took his literary title . 
one may say, from i\\Q Rambler, as the more familiar titl. 
>'as derived from the Dictionary. 

The Rambler was published twice a week from Marel 



jli.] LITERARY CAREER. 41 

J20th, 1750, to March 14th, 1752. In five numbers alono 
ijhe received assistance from friends, and one of these, 
!j writ ten by Eichardsun, is said to have been the only 
jnumber which had a large sale. The circulation rarely 
jexceeded 500, though ten English editions were published 
in the author's lifetime, besides Scotch and Irish editions. 
The payment, however, namely, two guineas a number, 
must have been w^olcome to Johnson, and the friendship 
of many distinguished men of the time was a still more 
valuable reward. A quaint story illustrates the hero- 
worship of which Johnson now became the object. Dr. 
Burney, afterwards an intimate friend, had introduced 
'himself to Johnson by letter in consequence of the Ramtler, 
and the plan of the Dictionary, The admiration was 
shared by a friend of Burney 's, a Mr. Bewley, known — in 
Norfolk at least — as the ^' philosopher of Massingham." 
When Burney at last gained the honour of a personal 
interview, he wished to procure some " relic " of Johnson 
for his friend. He cut off some bristles from a hearth- 
broom in the doctor's chambers, and sent them in a letter 
to his fellow-enthusiast. Long afterwards Johnson was 
pleased to hear of this simple-minded homage, and not 
only sent a copy of the Lives of the Poets to the rural phi- 
losopher, but deigned to grant him a personal interview. 

Dearer than any such praise w^as the approval of John- 

I son's wife. She told him that, well as she had thought of 

I him before, she had not considered him equal to such a 

i performance. The voice that so charmed him was soon to 

!be silenced for ever. Mrs. Johnson died (March 17th, 

1 1752) three days after the appearance of the last Ramhler. 

The man who has passed through such a trial knows well 

that, whatever may be in store for him in the dark future, 

fate can have no heavier blow in reserve. Though John* 

3 



42 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

son once acknowledged to Boswell, when in a placid 
humour, that happier days had come to him in his old age 
than in his early life, he would probably have added that 
though fame and friendship and freedom from the har- 
rowing cares of poverty might cause his life to be more 
equably happy, yet their rewards could represent but a 
faint and mocking reflection of the best moments of a happy 
marriage. His strong mind and tender nature reeled 
under the blow. Here is one pathetic little note written 
to the friend, Dr. Taylor, who had come to him in his 
distress. That which first announced the calamity, and 
which, said Taylor, " expressed grief in the strongest 
manner he had ever read," is lost. 

" Dear Sir, — Let me have your company and instruc- 
tion. Do not live away from me. My distress is great. 

" Pray desire Mrs. Taylor to inform me what mourning 
I should buy for my mother and Miss Porter, and bring a 
note in writing with you. 

** Eemember me in your prayers, for vain is the help of 
man. 

" I am, dear sir, 

" Sam. Johnson.*' 

We need not regret that a veil is drawn over the details 
of the bitter agony of his passage through the valley of i 
the shadow of death. It is enough to put down the ' 
wails which he wrote long afterwards when visibly ap- ■ 
preaching the close of all human emotions and interests : — -^ 

"This is the day on which, in 1752, dear Letty died. 
I have now uttered a prayer of repentance and contrition ; 
perhaps Letty knows that I prayed for her. Perhaps Letty 
is now praying for me. God help me. Thou, God, art 
merciful, hear my prayers and enable me to trust in Thee, 



111 



in.] LITERARY CAREER. 4^ 

I 

^' We were married almost seventeen years, and have 
new been parted thirty." 

It seems half profane, even at this distance of time, to 
pry into grief so deep and so lasting. Johnson turned for 
' jrelief to that which all sufferers know to be the only remedy 
^ffor sorrow — hard labour. He set to work in his garret, an 
jinconvenient room, ^' because," he said, " in that room only 
jl never saw Mrs. Johnson." He helped his friend Hawkes- 
iworth in the Adventurer^ a new periodical of the Rambler 
ikind ; but his main work was the Dictionary, which came 
out at last in 1755. Its appearance was the occasion of 
jan explosion of wrath which marks an epoch in our litera- 
I jture. Johnson, as we have seen, had dedicated the Plan 
: jto Lord Chesterfield ; and his language implies that they 
I jhad been to some extent in personal communication. Ches- 
terfield's fame is in curious antithesis to Johnson's. He 
was a man of great abilities, and seems to have deserved 
high credit for some parts of his statesmanship. As a 
Viceroy in Ireland in particular he showed qualities rare 
in his generation. To Johnson he was known as the 
nobleman who had a wide social influence as an acknow- 
ledged arbiter elegantiarum, and who reckoned among 
jhis claims some of that literary polish in which the earlier 
I generation of nobles had certainly been superior to their 
Successors. The art of life expounded in his Letters 
differs from Johnson as much as the elegant diplomatist 
j differs from the rough intellectual gladiator of Grub Street, 
i Johnson spoke his mind of his rival without reserve. '' I 
I thought," he said, 'Hhat this man had been a Lord among 
;wits j but I find he is only a wit among Lords." And of 
I the Letters he said more keenly that they taught the morals 
jof a harlot and the manners of a dancing-master. Chester- 
field's opinion of Johnson is indicated by the descriptiou ^ 
D 



44 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cua^.. 

in his Letters of a "respectable Hottentot, who throws 
his meat anywhere bub down his throat. This absurdi 
person," said Chesterfield, *' was not only uncouth in man^s 
ners and warm in dispute, but behaved exactly in the 
same way to superiors, equals, and inferiors ; and therci) 
fore, by a necessary consequence, absurdly to two of tha 
three. Hinc illce lacrymce I " k 

Johnson, in my opinion, was not far wrong in his judg-ji 
ment, though it would be a gross injustice to regard Ches-;( 
terfield as nothing but a fribble. But men representing': 
two such antithetic types were not likely to admire eachi 
other's good qualities. Whatever had been the intercoursGi 
between them, Johnson was naturally annoyed when th^ 
dignified noble published two articles in the World — i: 
periodical supported by such polite personages as himsehi 
and Horace Walpole — in which the need of a dictionary 
was set forth, and various courtly compliments describee 
Johnson's fitness for a dictatorship over the languageii 
Nothing could be more prettily turned ; but it meant, and 
Johnson took it to mean, I should like to have the dicj 
tionary dedicated to me : such a compliment would adc|i 
a feather to my cap, and enable me to appear to the world 
as a patron of literature as well as an authority upon man- 
ners. "After making great professions," as Johnson said 
" he had, for many years, taken no notice of me ; but whei 
my Dictionary was coming out, he fell a scribbling in th< 
World about it." Johnson therefore bestowed upon th< 
noble earl a piece of his mind in a letter which was no^ 
published till it came out in Boswell's biography. i 

" My Lord, — I have been lately informed by the pro 
prietor of the World that two papers, in which my Die 
tionary i^ recommended to the public, were written bv 
youx loidship. To be 80 distinguished is an honou- 



i 



p.] LITEEARY CAREEE. 45 

I 

phich, being very little accustomed to favours from the 
ll^eat, I know not well how to receive, or in what terms to 
.Acknowledge. 

I *' When, upon some slight encouragement, I first visited 
ij^our Lordship, I was overpowered, like the rest of man- 
kind, by the enchantment of your address ; and could not 
liforbear to wish that I might boast myself, le vainqueur 
■jplu vainqueur de la terre — that I might obtain that regard 
•for which I saw the world contending ; but I found my 
Attendance so little encouraged that neither pride noi 
rbiodesty would suffer me to continue it. When I had 
ebnce addressed your Lordship in public, I had exhausted 
gall .the arts of pleasing which a wearied and uncourtly 
^scholar can possess. I had done all that I could ; and no 
Iman is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever 
150 little. 

" Seven years, my lord, have now passed, since I waited 
n your outward rooms and was repulsed from your door ; 
luring which time I have been pushing on my work 
ihrough difficulties of which it is useless to complain, and 

Save brought it at last to the verge of publication without 
ne act of assistance, one word of encouragement, or one 
mile of favour. Such treatment I did not expect, for I 
jdever had a patron before. 

" The shepherd in Virgil grew at last acquainted with 
ove, and found him a native of the rocks. 
i| " Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with uncon- 
KJjern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when 
lie has reached the ground encumbers him with help ] 
.(iThe notice which you have been pleased to take of my 
labours, had it been early, had been kind ; but it has been 
j^elayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it ; till I 
im solitary, and cannot impart it ; till I am known, and 

i 



46 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [crap. ;.: 

do not want it. I hope it is no very cynical asperity not 
to confess obligations where no benefit has been received, 
or to be unwilling that the public should consider me as 
owing that to a patron which Providence has enabled me 
to do for myself. 

'^ Having carried on my work thus far with so little 
obligation to any favourer of learning, I shall not be dis- '• 
appointed though I should conclude it, should less be^ 
possible, with less ; for I have been long wakened froia '^ 
that dream of hope in which I once boasted myself with 
so much exultation, my Lord, 

" Tour Lordship's most humble, most obedient servant, 

** Sam. Johnson." 

The letter is one of those knock-down blows to which 
no answer is possible, and upon which comment is super- 
fluous. It was, as Mr. Carlyle calls it, '^ the far-famed' 
blast of doom proclaiming into the ear of Lord Chester- 
field and through him, of the listening world, that patron-' 
age should be no more/" ! 






That is all that can Lc said ; yet perhaps it should be 
added that Johnson remarked that he had once received^ 
£10 from Chestor€eld, though he thought the assistancef 
too inconsiderable to be mentioned in such a letter. Haw-f- 
kins also states that Chesterfield sent overtures to Johnson' 
through two friends, one of whom, long Sir Thomas Eo-' 
binson, statea that, if he were rich enough (a judicious- 
clause) he would himself settle £500 a year upon Johnson. 
Johnson replied that if the first peer of the realm made 
such, an offer, he would show him the way downstairs.; 
Hawkins is startled at this insolence, and at Johnson's 
uniform assertion that an offer of money was an insult. We 
cannot tell what was the history of the £10 ; but Johnson, 
in spite of Hawkins's righteous indignation, was in fact too 



Ijii.] LITEEARY CAREER. 4V 

!jproud to be a beggar, and owed to his pride his escape 
jfrom the fate of Savage. 

The appearance of the Dictionary placed Johnson in the 
i| position described soon afterwards by Smollett. He was 
jhenceforth ''the great Cham of Literature" — a monarch 
'ijsitting in the chair previously occupied by his namesake, 
i! Ben, by Dryden, and by Pope ; but which has since that 
hi time been vacant. The world of literature has become too 
i large for such authority. Complaints were not seldom 
uttered at the time. Goldsmith has urged that Bos well 
wished to make a monarchy of what ought to be a republic. 
Goldsmith, who would have been the last man to find 
• I serious fault with the dictator, thought the dictatorship 
I i objectionable. Some time indeed was still to elapse before 
[iwe can say that Johnson was firmly seated on the throne j 
but the Dictionary and the Rambler had given him a 
position not altogether easy to appreciate, now that the 
Dictionary has been superseded and the Rambler gone out 
of fashion. His name was the highest at this time (1755) 
in the ranks of pure literature. The fame of Warbarton 
possibly bulked larger for the moment, and one of his 
flatterers was comparing him to the Colossus which be- 
strides the petty world of contemporaries. But Warburton 
had subsided into episcopal repose, and literature had been 
for him a stepping-stone rather than an ultimate aim. 
I Hume had written works of far more enduring influence 
I than Johnson ; but they were little read though generally 
(j abused, and scarcely belong to the purely literary history. 
I The first volume of his History of England had appeared 
;; ( 1 75 4) , but had not succeeded. The second was just coming 
<j out. Eichardson was still giving laws to his little seraglio 
of adoring women; Fielding had died (1754), worn out by 
labour and dissipation ; Smollett was active in the litw[:ary« 



48 SAMUEL JOHNSON. LcHar 

trade, but not in sucli a way as to increase his own dignity . 
or that of his employment ; Gray was slowly writing a few | 
lines of exquisite verse in his retirement at Cambridge ; ' 
two young Irish adventurers, Burke and Goldsmith, were | 
just coming to London to try their fortune ; Adam Smith f 
made his first experiment as an author by reviewing the 
Dictionary in the Edinhurgh Review ; Eobertson had not i 
yet appeared as a historian ; Gibbon was at Lausanne 
repenting of his old brief lapse into Catholicism as an act 
of undergraduate's folly ; and Cowper, after three years of , 
" giggling and making giggle" with Thurlow in an attor- 
ney's ofiSce, was now entered at the Temple and amusing 
himself at times with literature in company with such i 
small men of letters as Colman, Bonnell Thornton, and 
Lloyd. It was a slack tide of literature ; the generation ^ 
of Pope had passed away and left no successors, and no i 
writer of the time could be put in competition with the i 
giant now known as " Dictionary Johnson." 

When the last sheet of the Dictionary had been carried . 
to the publisher, Millar, Johnson asked the messenger, ! 
" What did he say % " " Sir," said the messenger, " he | 
said, * Thank God I have done with him.' " " I am glad," 
replied Johnson, "that he thanks God for anything." 
Thankfulness for relief from seven years' toil seems to have 
been Johnson's predominant feeling: and he was not 
anxious for a time to take any new labours upon his shoul- i 
ders. Some years passed which have left few traces either ^ 
upon his personal or his literary history. He contributed a || 
good many reviews in 1756-7 to the Literary Magazine, 
one of which, a review of Soame Jenyns, is amongst his 
best performances. To a weekly paper he contributed for 
two years, from April, 1758, to April, 1760, a set of essays . 
called the Idler, on the old Rambler plan. He did some 



jii.] LITERARY CAREER. 49 

i|8mall literary cobbler's work, receiving a guinea for a 
iiprospectus to a newspaper and ten pounds for correcting a 
jvolume of poetrj. He had advertised in 1756 a new 
jedition of Shakspeare which was to appear by Christmas, 
11757 : but he dawdled over it so unconscionably that it 
jdid not appear for nine years ; and then only in conse- 
'Jquence of taunts from Churchill, who accused him with 
'too much plausibility of cheating his subscribers. 

He for subscribers baits his book ; 

And takes your cash : but wbere's tbe book P 

No matter where ; wise fear, you know 

Forbids the robbing of a foe ; 

Bat what to serve our private ends 

Forbids the cheating of our friends ? 

In truth, his constitutional indolence seems to have 
gained advantages over him, when the stimulus of a heavy 
task was removed. In his meditations, there are many 
complaints of his " sluggishness " and resolutions of 
amendment- *'A kind of strange oblivion has spread 
over me," he says in April, 1764, "so that I know not 
what has become of the last years, and perceive that 
incidents and intelligence .pass over me without leaving 
any impression." 

r It seems, however, that he was still frequently in 

difficulties. Letters are preserved showing that in the 

beginning of 1756, Eichardson became surety for him for 

a debt, and lent him six guineas to release him from 

arrest. An event which happened three years later 

i illustrates his position and character. In January, 1759, 

! his mother died at the age of ninety. Johnson wa« 

I unable to come to Lichfield, and some deeply pathetic 

i letters to her and her stepdaughter, who lived with her, 

j record his emotions. Here is the last sad farewell upon 

! the snapping of the most sacred of human ties. ♦ 

! 3* 



50 SAMUEL JOHNSON [chap, ;^ 

"Dear Honoured Mother," he says in a letter 
enclosed to Lucy Porter, the step -daughter, " neither 
your condition nor your character make it fit for me to 
say much. You have heen the best mother, and I believe I 
the best woman in the world. I thank you for your in- 
dulgence to me, and beg forgiveness of all that I have 
done ill, and of all that I have omitted to do well. God 
grant you His Holy Spirit, and receive you to everlasting t 
happiness for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen. Lord Jesus 
receive your spirit. I am, dear, dear mother, 

** Your dutiful son, 

" Samuel Johnson." 

Johnson managed to raise twelve guineas, six of them 
borrowed from his printer, to send to his dying mother. 
In order to gain money for her funeral expenses and some 
small debts, he wrote the story of Rasselas, It was. 
composed in the evenings of a single week, and sent to 
press as it was written. He received £100 for this, 
perhaps the most successful of his minor writings, and 
£25 for a second edition. It was widely translated and 
universally admired. One of the strangest of literary ; 
coincidences is the contemporary appearance of this work 
and Voltaire's Candide ; to which, indeed, it bears in ^ 
some respects so strong a resemblance that, but for John- 
son's apparent contradiction, we would suppose that he 
had at least heard some description of its design. The 
two stories, though widely differing in tone and style, are 
among the most powerful expressions of the melancholy 
produced in strong intellects by the sadness and sorrows of ?. 
the world. The literary excellence of Candide has secured 
for it a wider and more enduring popularity than has 
fallen to the lot of Johnson's fai hea^'ier production. But 



ill.] LITERARY CAREER. 51 

jEasselas is a book of singular force, and bears the most 
ijcharacteristic impression of Johnson's peculiar tempera- 
.Iment. 

A great change was approaching in Johnson's circum- 
stances. When George III. came to the throne, it struck 
borne of his advisers that it would be well, as Boswell puts 
it, to open " a new and brighter prospect to men of literary 
Imerit." This commendable design was carried out by 
offering to Johnson a pension of three hundred a year. 
j jConsidering that such men as Horace Walpole and hia 
[like were enjoying sinecures of more than twice as many 
|thousands for being their father's sons, the bounty does 
Inot strike one as excessively liberal. It seems to have 
been really intended as some set-off against other pensions 
[bestowed upon various hangers-on of the Scotch prime 
jminister, Bute. Johnson was coupled with the con- 
temptible scribbler, Shebbeare, who had lately been in the 
pillory for a Jacobite libel (a " he-bear '^ and a ^' she-bear," 
said the facetious newspapers), and when a few months 
afterwards a pension of £200 a year w^as given to the old 
actor, Sheridan, Johnson growled out that it was time for 
him to resign his own. Somebody kindly repeated the 
remark to Sheridan, who would never afterwards speak to 
Johnson. 

i The pension, though very welcome to Johnson, who 
Beems to have been in real distress at the time, suggested 
some difficulty. Johnson had unluckily spoken of a pen- 
sion in his Dictionary as "generally understood to mean 
pay given to a State hireling for treason to his country." 
jHe was assured, however, that he did not come within 
Ithe definition ; and that the reward was given for what 
jhe had done, not for anything that he was expected to do. 
jAffcer some hesitation, Johnson consented to accept the * 
i 



52 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap, f 

payment thus offered without the direct sug_<:jestic'n of any 
obligation, though it was probably calculated that he 
would in case of need, be the more ready, as actually 
happened, to use his pen in defence of authority. He had 
not compromised his independence and might fairly laugh 
at angry comments. '*I wish," he said afterwards, " that 
my pension were twice as large, that they might make 
twice as much noise." " I cannot now curse the House of 
Hanover," was his phrase on another occasion : *' but I 
think that the pleasure of cursing the House of Hanover 
and drinking King James's health, all amply overbalanced 
by three hundred pounds a year." In truth, his Jacobitism 
was by this time, w^hatever it had once been, nothing 
more than a humorous crotchet, giving opportunity for 
the expression of Tory prejudice. 

" I hope you will now purge and live cleanly like a 
gentleman," was Beauclerk's comment upon hearing of his 
friend's accession of fortune, and as Johnson is now 
emercrincr from Grub Street, it is desirable to consider what 
manner of man was to be presented to the wider circles 
that were opening to receive him. 



in.} JOHNSON AND HIS FEIENDS. 63 



CHAPTER III 



JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 



It is not till some time after Johnson had come into the 
enjoyment of his pension, that we first see him through 
jthe eyes of competent observers. The Johnson of onr 
(knowledge, the most familiar figure to all students of 
English literary history had already long passed the prime 
of life, and done the greatest part of his literary work. 
His character, in the common phrase, had heen " formed " 
years before ; as, indeed, people's characters are chiefly 
formed in the cradle ; and, not only his character, but the 
habits which are learnt in the great schooboom of the 
world were fixed beyond any possibility of change. The 
strange eccentricities which had now become a second 
nature, amazed the society in which he was for over 
twenty years a prominent figure. Unsympathetic ob- 
servers, those especially to whom the Chesterfield type 
represented the ideal of humanity, were simply disgusted 
or repelled. The man, they thought, might be in his 
place at a Grub Street pot-house ; but had no business in 
a lady's drawing-room. If he had been modest and 
j retiring, they might have put up with his defects ; but 
j Johnson was not a person whose qualities, good or bad, 
were of a kind to be ignored. Naturally enough, the 
fashionable world cared little for the rugged old giant* 



54 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [rHAP. 

" The great," said Johnson, " had tried him and given him 
up ; they had seen enough of him ; " and his reason was 
pretty much to the purpose. " Great lords and great ladies 
don't love to have their mouths stopped," especially not, 
one may add, by an unwashed fist. 

It is easy to blame them now. Everybody can see that 
a saint in beggar's rags is incrinsically better than a sinner 
in gold lace. But the principle is one of those which 
serves ns for judging the dead, much more than for 
regulating our own conduct. Those, at any rate, may 
throw the first stone at the Horace Walpoles and Chester- 
fields, who are quite certain that they would ask a modern 
Johnson to their houses. The trial would be severe. Poor 
Mrs. Boswell complained grievously of her husband's 
idolatry. " I have seen many a bear led by a man," she 
said ; " but I never before saw a man led by a bear." The 
truth is, as Boswell explains, that the sage's uncou 
habits, such as turning the candles' heads downwards 
make them burn more brightly, and letting the wax drop ^ 
upon the carpet, " could not but be disagreeable to a lady." j 

He had other habits still more annoying to people oif , 
delicate perceptions. A hearty despiser of all affectations, | 
he despised especially the afi'ectation of indifference to J 
the pleasures of the table. " For my part," he said, " I 
mind my belly very studiously and very carefully, for I j 
look upon it that he who does not mind his belly will | 
hardly mind anything else." Avowing this principle \ 
he would innocently give himself the airs of a scientific , 
epicure. *' I, madam," he said to the terror of a lady with 
whom he was about to sup, *' who live at a variety of good 
tables, am a much better judge of cookery than any 
person who has a very tolerable cook, but lives much at 
home, for his palate is gradually adapted to the taste of 



t^ 



ni,] 



.-^OHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 55 



of his head ereas, madam, in trying hy a "wider range, I 
breeches h?^Q.^isi^^^y jii^g^-" ^^^^ l^is pretensions to 
physicians ^^^ ^^^ ^7 ^^ means home out hy independent 
official cof " ^^ laughs," said Tom Davies, " like a 
hahits we>" ^^^ ^^ seems to have eaten like a wolf — 
ist. -oojit. silently, and with undiscriminating fury. He 
was not a pleasant object during this performance. He 
was totally absorbed in the business of the moment, a 
strong perspiration came out, and the veins of his forehead 
swelled. He liked coarse satisfying dishes — boiled pork 
and yeal-pie stuffed with plums and sugar ; and in regard 
to wine, he seems to have accepted the doctrines of the 
critic of a certain fluid professing to be port, who asked, 
'' What more can you want 1 It is black, and it is thick, 
and it makes you drunk." Claret, as Johnson put it, "is 
the liquor for boys, and port for men j but he who aspires 
to be a hero must drink brandy." He could, however, 
refrain, though he could not be moderate, and for all the 
latter part i> "_\xo life, from 1766, he was a total abstainer. 
l^OT, it should be added, does he ever appear to have 
sought for more than exhilaration from wine. His earliest 
intimate friend. Hector, said that he had never but once 
seen him drunk. 

His appetite for more innocent kinds of food was 
equally excessive. He would eat seven or eight peaches 
before breakfast, and declared that he had only once in 
his life had as much wall-fruit as he wished. His con- 
sumption of tea was prodigious, beyond all precedent. 
Hawkins quotes Bishop Burnet as having drunk sixteen 
large cups every morning, a feat which would entitle him to 
be reckoned as a rival. *^ A hardened and shameless tea- 
drinker," Johnson called himself, who "with tea amuses 
the evenings, with tea solaces the midnights, and with t^a 



C 



56 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 

[rHAP. I 

welcomes the mornings." One of his teapots, . i 

a relic-hunter, contained two quarts, and he ^ V 

I , ^ . . , i. -^ reason was < 

have consumed nve and twenty cups at a sit' i 

Mrs. Thrale complains that he often kept her ^ . 

tea for him till four in the morning. His rel ' ! 

go to bed was due to the fact that his nights we ..v.as t 

of intense misery; but the vast potations of tea can \ 

scarcely have tended to improve them. 

The huge frame was clad in the raggedest of garments, 

until his acquaintance with the Thrales led to a partial j 

reform. His wigs were generally burnt in front, from ', 

his shortsighted knack of reading with his head close to ^ 

the candle ; and at the Thrales, the butler stood ready to i 

effect a change of wigs as he passed into the dining-room. J 

Once or twice we have accounts of his bursting into un- • 

usual splendour. He appeared at the first representation j 

of Irene in a scarlet waistcoat laced with gold ; and on one ' 

of his first interviews with Goldsmith he took the trouble ^ 

'^''IS u 1 

to array himself decently, because Goldsmiui was leported 
to have justified slovenly habits by the precedent of the 
leader of his craft. Goldsmith, judging by certain famous 
suits, seems to have profited by the hint more than his 
preceptor. As a rule, Johnson's appearance, before ho 
became a pensioner, was worthy of the proverbial manner 
of Grub Street. Beauclerk used to describe how he had 
once taken a French lady of distinction to see Johnson in 
his chambers. On descending the staircase they heard a 
noise like thunder. Johnson was pursuing them, struck 
by a sudden sense of the demands upon his gallantry. 
He brushed in between Beauclerk and the lady, and seizing 
her hand conducted her to her coach. A crowd of people 
collected to stare at the sage, dressed in rusty brown, with 
a pair of old shoes for slippers, a shrivelled wig on the top 



nij JOHNSON AND HIS FEIENDS. 57 

of his head, and with shirtsleeves and the tnees of his 
breeches hanging loose. In those days, clergy mtn and 
physicians were only just ahandoning the use of their 
official costume in the streets, and Johnson's slovenly 
habits were even more marked than they would he at 
present. '* I have no passion for clean linen,'' he once 
remarked, and it is to he feared that he must sometimes 
have offended more senses than one. 

In spite of his uncouth habits of dress and manners, 
Johnson claimed and, in a sense, with justice, to be a 
polite man. " 1 look upon myself," he said once to Bos- 
well, " as a very polite man." He could show the stately 
courtesy of a sound Tory, who cordially accepts the prin- 
ciple of social distinction, but has far too strong a sense of 
self-respect to fancy that compliance with the ordinary 
conventions can possibly lower his own position. Eank 
of the spiritual kind was especially venerable to him. " I 
should as soon have thought of contradicting a bishop," 
was a phrase which marked the highest conceivable degree 
of deference to a man whom he respected. !N"obody, again, 
could pay more efFective compliments, when he pleased ; 
and the many female friends who have written of him 
agree, that he could be singularly attractive to women. 
Women are, perhaps, more inclined than men to forgive 
external roughness in consideration of the great cliarm o' 
deep tenderness in a thoroughly masculine nature. A 
characteristic phrase was his remark to Miss Monckton. 
Shs had declared, in opposition to one of Johnson's pre- 
judices, that Sterne's writings w^ere pathetic : *^ I am sure," 
she said, " they have affected me." " Why," said Johnson, 
smiling and rolling himself about, "that is because, 
dearest, you are a dunce !" When she mentioned th7> to 
Jiim some time afterwards he replied : " Madam, if I had 



58 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

thought so, I certainly should not have said it." The truth 
could not he more neatly put. 

Boswell notes, with some surprise, that when Johnson 
dined with Lord Monboddo he insisted upon rising when 
the ladies left the table, and took occasion to observe that 
politeness was " fictitious benevolence," and equally useful 
in common intercourse. Boswell's surprise seems to indi- 
cate that Scotchmen in those days were even gi-eater bears 
than Johnson. He always insisted, as Miss Eeynolds tells 
us, upon showing ladies to their carriages through Bolt 
Court, though his dress was such that her readers would, 
she thinks, be astonished that any man in his senses 
should have shown himself in it abroad or even at home. 
Another odd indication of Johnson's regard for f^jood man- 
ners, so far as his lights would take him, was the extreme 
disgust with which he often referred to a certain footman 
in Paris, who used his fingers in place of sugar-tongs. So 
far as Johnson could recognize bad manners he was polite 
enough, though unluckily the limitation is one of con 
siderable importance. 

Johnson's claims to politeness were sometimes, it is true, 
put in a rather startling form. ** Every man of any educa- 
tion," he once said to the amazement of his hearers, 
^' would rather be called a rascal than accused of deficiency 
in the graces." Gibbon, who was present, slily inquired 
of a lady whether among all her acquaintance she could 
not find one exception. According to ^Irs. Thrale, he went 
even further. Dr. Barnard, he said, was the only man 
who had ever done justice to his good breeding; "and you 
may observe," he added, " that I am well-bred to a degree 
of needless scrupulosity." He proceeded, according to 
Mrs. Thrale, but the report a little taxes our faith, to claim 
tBe virtues Dot only of respecting ceremony, but of nevor 



III.] JOHNSON AND HIS FEIENDS. 59 

i 

contradicting or interrupting his hearers. It is rather odd 

that Dr. Barnard had once a sharp altercation with John- 

j son, and avenged himself by a sarcastic copy of verses in 

1 which, after professing to learn perfectness from different 

I; friends, he says, — 

ji 

Jolinson shall teach me how to place, 

I In varied light, each borrowed grace j 

From him Til learn to write j 
Copy his clear familiar style, 
And by the roughness of his file, 

Grow, Hke himself, polite. 

Johnson, on this as on many occasions, repented of the 

\ blow as soon as it was struck, and sat down by Barnard, 
" literally smoothing down his arms and knees," and be- 
seeching pardon. Barnard accepted his apologies, bul 
went home and wrote his little copy of verses. 

Johnson's shortcomings in civility were no doubt due, 
in part, to the narrowness of his faculties of perception. 
He did not know, for he could not see, that his uncouth 
gestures and slovenly dress were offensive ; and he was 
not so well able to observe others as to shake off the man- 
ners contracted in Grub Street. It is hard to study a 
manual of etiquette late in life, and for a man of Johnson's 
imperfect faculties it was probably impossible. Errors of 
this kind were always pardonable, and are now simply 
ludicrous. But Johnson often shocked his companions by 
more indefensible conduct. He was irascible, overbearing, 
and, when angry, vehement beyond all propriety. He was 

j a "tremendous companion," said GarricFs brother; and 
men of gentle nature, like Charles Fox, often shrank from 

; his company, and perhaps exaggerated his brutality. 

[ Johnson, who had long regarded conversation as the 
chief amusement, came in later year? to regard it as almost 
E 



60 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

the chief employment of life ; and he had studied the art 
with the zeal of a man pursuing a favourite hohby. He 
had always, as he told Sir Joshua Eeynolds, made it a 
principle to talk on all occasions as well as he could. He 
had thus obtained a mastery over his weapons which made 
him one of the most accomplished of conversational gla- 
diators. He had one advantage which has pretty well 
disappeared from modern society, and the disappearance of 
which has been destructive to excellence of talk. A good 
talker, even more than a good orator, implies a good audi- 
ence. Modern society is too vast and too restless to give 
a conversationalist a fair chance. For the formation of 
real proficiency in the art, friends should meet often, sit 
long, and be thoroughly at ease. A modern audience 
generally breaks up before it is well warmed through, and 
includes enough strangers to break the magic circle of social 
electricity. The clubs in which Johnson delighted were 
excellently adapted to foster his peculiar talent. There a 
man could " fold his legs and have his talk out " — a plea- 
sure hardly to be enjoyed now. And there a set of friend^B 
meeting regularly, and meeting to talk, learnt to sharpen" 
each other's skill in all dialectic manoeuvres. Conversation 
may be pleasantest, as Johnson admitted, when two friends 
meet quietly to exchange their minds without any thought 
of display. But conversation considered as a game, as a 
^ bout of intellectual sword-play, has also charms which 
Johnson intensely appreciated. His talk was not of the 
encyclopaedia variety, like that of some more modern cele- 
brities ; but it was full of apposite illustrations and un- 
rivalled in keen argument, rapid flashes of wit and humour, 
scornful retort and dexterous sophistry. Sometimes he 
would fell his adversary at a blow ; his sword, as Bos well 
said, would be through your body in an instant without 



HI.] JOHNSON AND HIS FEIENDS. 61 

preKminary flourishes ; and in the excitement of talking 
for victory, he would use any device that came to hand. 
"There is no arguing with Johnson/' said Goldsmith, 
quoting a phrase from Gibber, " for if his pistol misses 
fire, he knocks you down with the butt-end of it." 

Johnson's view of conversation is indicated by his 
remark about Burke. "That fellow," he said at a time of 
illness, *^ calls forth all my powers. Were I to see Burke 
now, it would kill me." ** It is when you come close to a 
man in conversation," he said on another occasion, " that 
you discover what his real abilities are. To make a speech 
in an assembly is a knack. I^ow I honour Thurlow, sir ; 
Thurlow is a fine fellow, he fairly puts his mind to yours." 

Johnson's retorts were fair play under the conditions of 
the game, as it is fair play to kick an opponent's shins at 
football. But of course a man who had, as it were, be- 
come the acknowledged champion of the ring, and who 
had an irascible and thoroughly dogmatic temper, was 
tempted to become unduly imperious. In the company of 
which Savage was a distinguished member, one may guess 
that the conversational fervour sometimes degenerated into 
horse-play. Want of arguments would be supplied by per- 
sonality, and the cliampion would avenge himself by bru- 
tality on an opponent who happened for once to be getting 
the best of him. Johnson, as he grew older and got into 
more polished society, became milder in his manners ; but 
he had enough of the old spirit left in him to break forth 
at times with ungovernable fury, and astonish the well- 
regulated minds of respectable ladies and gentlemen. 

Anecdotes illustrative of this ferocity abound, and his 
best friends — except, perhaps, Eeynolds and Burke — ^had 
all to suffer in turn. On one occasion, when he had made 
a rude sj^eech even to Eeynolds, Bos well states, though with 



62 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

some hesitation, his belief that Johnson actually blushed. 
The records of his contests in this kind fill a large space 
in Boswell's pages. That they did not lead to worse con- 
sequences shows his absence of rancour. He was always 
ready and anxious for a reconciliation, though he would 
not press for one if his first overtures were rejected. There 
was no venom in the wounds he inflicted, for there was no 
ill-nature ; he was rough in the heat of the struggle, and in 
such cases careless in distributing blows ; but he never en- 
joyed giving pain. K"one of his tiffs ripened into permanent 
quarrels, and he seems scarcely to have lost a friend. He 
is a pleasant contrast in this, as in much else, to Horace 
Walpole, who succeeded, in the course of a long life, in 
breaking with almost all his old friends. Xo man set a 
higher value upon friendship than Johnson. "A man," he 
said to Eeynolds, *' ought to keep his friendship in constant 
repair ;" or he would find himself left alone as he grew 
older. '* I look upon a day as lost," he said later in life, 
** in which I do not make a new acquaintance." Making 
new acquaintances did not involve dropping the old. The 
list of his friends is a long one, and includes, as it were, 
successive layers, superposed upon each other, from the 
earliest period of his life. 

This is so marked a feature in Johnson's character, that 
it will be as well at this point to notice some of the friend- 
ships from which he derived the greatest part of his 
happiness. Two of his schoolfellows, Hector and Taylor, 
remained his intimates through life. Hector survived to give 
information to Boswell, and Taylor, then a prebendary of 
Westminster, read the funeral service over his old friend 
in the Abbey. He showed, said some of the bystanders, 
too little feeling. The relation between the two men was 
not one of special tenderness ; indeed they were so little 



III.] JOHNSON AND HIS FEIENDS. 63 

congenial that Boswell rather gratuitously suspected hia 
venerable teacher of having an eye to Taylor's will. It 
seems fairer to regard the acquaintance as an illustration 
of that curious adhesiveness which made Johnson cling to 
less attractive persons. At any rate, he did not show the 
complacence of the proper will-hunter. Taylor was rector 
of Eosworth and squire of Ashbourne. He was a fine 
specimen of the squire-parson ; a justice of the peace, a 
warm politician, and what was worse, a warm Whig. He 
raised gigantic bulls, bragged of selling cows for 120 
guineas and more, and kept a noble butler in purple clothes 
and a large white wig. Johnson respected Taylor as a 
sensible man, but was ready to have a round with him on 
occasion. He snorted contempt when Taylor talked of 
breaking some small vessels if he took an emetic. " Eah," 
said the doctor, who regarded a valetudinarian as a " scoun- 
drel," " if you have so many things that will break, you 
had better break your neck at once, and there's an end 
on't." J^ay, if he did not condemn Taylor's cows, he 
criticized his bulldog with cruel acuteness. " No, sir, he 
is not well shaped ; for there is not the quick transition 
from the thickness of the fore-part to the tenuity — the 
thin part — behind, which a bulldog ought to have." On the 
more serious topic of politics his Jacobite fulminations 
roused Taylor " to a pitch of bellowing." Johnson roared 
out that if the people of England were fairly polled (this 
was in 1777) the present king would be sent away to-night<, 
and his adherents hanged to-morrow. Johnson, however^ 
rendered Taylor the substantial service of writing sermons 
for him, two volumes of which were published after they 
were both dead ; and Taylor must have been a bold man, 
if it be true, as has been said, that he refused to preach a 
Bermon written by Johnson upon Mrs. Johnson's death, oh 



64 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

the ground that it spoke too favourably of the character 

of the deceased. 

Johnson paid frequent visits to Lichfield, to keep up his 
old friends. One of them was Lucy Porter, his wife's 
daughter, with whom, according to Miss Seward^ he had 
been in love before he married her mother. He was at least 
tenderly attached to her through life. And, for the most 
part, the good people of Lichfield seem to have been proud 
of their fellow-townsman, and gave him a substantial proof 
of their sympathy by continuing to him, on favourable terms, 
the lease of a house originally granted to his father. There 
was, indeed, one remarkable exception in Miss Seward, 
who belonged to a genus specially contemptible to the 
old doctor. She was one of the fine ladies who dabbled 
in poetry, and aimed at being the centre of a small literary 
circle afc Lichfield. Her letters are amongst the most ' 
amusing illustrations of the petty affectations and squabbler 
characteristic of such a provincial clique. She evidently 
hated Johnson at the bottom of her small soul ; and, in- 
deed, though Johnson once paid her a preposterous com- 
pliment — a weakness of A^hich this stern moralist was apt ' 
to be guilty in the company of ladies — he no doubt trod 
pretty roughly upon some of her pet vanities. 

By far the most celebrated of Johnson's Lichfield friends 
was David Garrick, in regard to whom his relations were r/ 
somewhat peculiar. Reynolds said that Johnson con- [j 
sidered Garrick to be his own property, and wo^old never 
allow him to be praised or blamed by any one else without 
contradiction. Reynolds composed a pair of imaginary 
dialogues to illustrate the proposition, in one of which i 
Johnson attacks Garrick in answer to Reynolds, and in the 
other defends him in answer to Gibbon. The dialogues i 
seem to be very good reproductions of the Johnsonian 



in.] JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 65 

manner, though perhaps the courteous Eeynolds was a 
little too much impressed by its roughness ; and they 
probably include many genuine remarks of Johnson's. It 
is remarkable that the praise is far more pointed and 
elaborate than 'the blame, which turns chiefly upon the 
general inferiority of an actor's position. And, in fact, 
this seems to have corresponded to Johnson's opinion about 
Garrick as gathered from BoswelL 

The two men had at bottom a considerable regard for each 
other, founded upon old association, mutual services, and 
reciprocal respect for talents of very different orders. But 
they were so widely separated by circumstances, as well as 
by a radical opposition of temperament, that any close 
intimacy could hardly be expected. The bear and the 
monkey are not likely to be intimate friends. Garrick's 
rapid elevation in fame and fortune seems to have pro- 
duced a certain degree of envy in his old schoolmaster. A 
grave moral philosopher has, of course, no right to look 
askance at the rewards which fashion lavishes upon men 
of lighter and less lasting merit, and which he professes to 
despise. Johnson, however, was troubled with a rathei 
excessive allowance of human nature. Moreover he had the 
good old-fashioned contempt for players, characteristic both 
of the Tory and the inartistic mind. He asserted roundly 
that he looked upon players as no better than dancing-dogs. 
" But, sir, you will allow that some players are better 
than others ^ " " Yes, sir, as some dogs dance better than 
others." So when Goldsmith accused Garrick of grossly 
flattering the queen, Johnson exclaimed, " And as to 
meanness — how is it mean in a player, a showman, a fellow 
who exhibits himself for a shilling, to flatter his queen 1 " 
At another time Boswell suggested that we might respect 
a great player, " What ! sir," exclaimed Johnson, " a 

4 



66 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

fellow who claps a hump upon Ms back and a lump on his 
leg ani cries, ^ I am Richard III.^ ? ISTay, sir, a ballad- 
singer is a higher man, for he does two things : he repeats 
and he sings ; there is both recitation and music in his 
performance — the player only recites." 

Such sentiments were not very likely to remain un- 
known to Garrick nor to put him at ease with Johnson, 
whom, indeed, he always suspected of laughing at him. 
They had a little tiff on account of Johnson's Edition of 
Shakspeare. From some misunderstanding, Johnson did 
not make use of Garrick's collection of old plays. John- 
son, it seems, thought that Garrick should have courted 
him more, and perhaps sent the plays to his house ; 
whereas Garrick, knowing that Johnson treated books 
with a roughness ill-suited to their constitution, thought 
that he had done quite enough by asking Johnson to 
come to his library. The revenge — if it was revenge — 
taken by Johnson was to say nothing of Garrick in his 
Preface, and to glance obliquely at his non-communication 
of his rarities. He seems to have thought that it would be 
a lowering of Shakspeare to admit that his fame owed 
anything to Garrick's exertions. 

Boswell innocently communicated to Garrick a criticism 
of Johnson's upon one of his poems — 

I'd smile with the simple and feed with the poor. 

" Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich," 
was Johnson's tolerably harmless remark. Garrick, how- 
ever, did not like it, and when Boswell tried to console 
him by saying that Johnson gored everybody in turn, and 
added, ^^foenum hahet in cormiy **Ay," said Garrick 
vehemently, " he has a whole mow of it." 



III.] ^ JOHNSON AND HIS FEIENDS. 67 

The most unpleasant incident was wlien Garrick proposed 
rather too freely to be a member of the Club. Johnson 
said that the first duke in England had no right to use 
I such language, and said, according to Mrs. Thrale, " If 
Garrick does apply, I'll blackball him. Surely we ought 
to be able to sit in a society like ours — 

* Unelbowed by a gamester, pimp, or player ! * ** 

Nearly ten years afterwards, however, Johnson favoured 
!i his election, and when he died, declared that the Club 
should have a year's widowhood. No successor to Garrick 
I was elected during that time. 

! Johnson sometimes ventured to criticise Garrick's acting, 
[ but here Garrick could take his full revenge. The pur- 
blind Johnson was not, we may imagine, much of a critic 
in such matters. Garrick reports him to have said of an 
actor at Lichfield, " There is a courtly vivacity about the 
fellow j" when, in fact, said Garrick, " he was the most 
vulgar ruffian that ever went upon boards." 

In spite of such collisions of opinion and mutual 
criticism, Johnson seems to have spoken in the highest 
terms of Garrick's good qualities, and they had many 
pleasant meetings. Garrick takes a prominent part in two 
or three of the best conversations in Boswell, and seems 
to have put his interlocutors in specially good temper. 
Johnson declared him to be " the first man in the world for 
sprightly conversation." He said that Dryden had written 
\ much better prologues than any of Garrick's, but that 
Garrick had written more good prologues than Dryden. He 
declared that it was wonderful how little Garrick had been 
spoilt by all the flattery that he had received. No wonder 
if he was a little vain : " a man who is perpetually flattered 



68 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

in every mode that can he conceived : so many hellows have 
blown the fuel, that one wonders he is not hy this timehecome 
a cinder ! " *' If all this had happened to me," he said on 
another occasion, " I should have had a couple of fellows 
with long poles walking before me, to knock down everybody 
that stood in the way. Consider, if all this had happened 
to Gibber and Quin, they'd have jumped over the moon. 
Yet Garrick speaks to us," smiling. He admitted at the 
same time that Gariick had raised the profession of a j 
player. He defended Garrick, too, against the common ^ 
charge of avarice. Garrick, as he pointed out, had been vj 
brought up in a family whose study it was to make four- 
pence go as far as fourpence-halfpenny. Johnson remem- 
bered in early days drinking tea with Garrick when Peg *i 
WofiQngton made it, and made it, as Garrick grumbled, " as | 
red as blood." But when Garrick became rich he became 
liberal. He had, so Johnson declared, given away more Ji 
money than any man in England. II 

After Garrick's death, Johnson took occasion to say, in , 
the Lives of the Poets, that the death "had eclipsed the i 
gaiety of nations and diminished the public- stock of harm- ., 
less pleasures." Bos well ventured to criticise the observa- ' j 
tion rather spitefully. " Why nations ? Did his gaiety '-j 
extend further than his own nation ] " " Why, sir," replied '^ 
Johnson, " some imagination must be allowed. Besides, 
we may say nations if we allow the Scotch to be a nation, 
and to have gaiety — which they have not." On the whole, f 
in spite of various drawbacks, Johnson's reported observa- i | 
tions upon Garrick will appear to be discriminative, and 1 
yet, on the whole, strongly favourable to liis character. I 

r ?? 

Yet we are not quite surprised that Mrs. Garrick did noti 
respond to a hint thrown out by Johnson, that he would I 
be glad to write the life of hi^ friend. 



HI.] JOHNSON AND HIS FEIENDS. 69 

At Oxford, Johnson acquired the friendship of Dr. 
Adams, afterwards Master of Pembroke and author of a 
I once well-known reply to Hume's argument upon miracles. 
He was an amiable man, and was proud to do the honours 
of the university to his old friend, when, in later years, 
il Johnson revisited the much-loved scenes of his neglected 
' youth. The warmth of Johnson's regard for old days is 
i oddly illustrated by an interview recorded by Bos well with 
one Edwards, a fellow-student whom he met again in 1778, 
not having previously seen him since 1729. They had 
lived in London for forty years without once meeting, a 
fact more surprising then than now. Boswell eagerly 
gathered up the little scraps of college anecdote which the 
meeting produced, but perhaps his best find was a phrase 
'f \ Edwards himself. ^' You are a philosopher. Dr. John- 
son," he said; ^* I have tried, too, in my time to be a 
philosopher; but, I don't know how, cheerfalness was 
always breaking in.^' The phrase, as BosweU truly says, 
records an exquisite trait of character. 

Of the friends who gathered round Johnson during his 
period of struggle, many had vanished before he became 
well known. The best loved of all seems to have been 
Dr. Bathurst, a physician, who, failing to obtain practice, 
joined the expedition to Havannah, and fell a victim to the 
climate (1762). Upon him Johnson pronounced a pane- 
gyric which has contributed a proverbial phrase to the 
language. " Dear Bathurst," he said, " was a man to my 
very heart's content : he hated a fool and he hated a rogue, 
and he hated a Whig ; he was a very good haters Johnson 
remembered Bathurst in his prayers for years after his loss, 
and received from him a peculiar legacy. Erancis Barber 
had been the negro slave of Bathurst's father, who left him 
his liberty by will. Dr. Bathurst allowed him to enter 



70 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap- 

Johnson's service ; and Johnson sent him to school at con- 
siderable expense, and afterwards retained him in his 

service with little interruption till his own death. Once ^p 
Barber ran away to sea, and was discharged, oddly enough, 
by the good offices of Wilkes, to whom Smollett applied 

on Johnson's behalf. Barber became an important member / 

of Johnson's family, some of whom reproached him for his i 

liberality to the nigger. No one ever solved the great i 

problem as to what services were rendered by Barber to "^ 

his master, whose wig was " as impenetrable by a comb as j 

a quickset hedge," and whose clothes were never touched I 

by the brush. ! 

Among the other friends of this period must be . 1 

reckoned his biographer, Hawkins, an attorney who was i 
afterwards Chairman of the Middlesex Justices, and^j 

knighted on presenting an address to the King. Boswe" ,i 

regarded poor Sir John Hawkins with all the animosity of \ 

a rival author, and with some spice of wounded vanity. ; 

He was grievously offended, so at least says Sir John's | 

daughter, on being described in the Life of Johnson as j 

** Mr. James Boswell " without a solitary epithet such as j 

celebrated or well-known. If that was really his feeling, | 

he had his revenge ; for no one book ever so suppressed , 
another as Boswell's Life suppressed Hawkins's. In truth, 

Hawkins was a solemn prig, remarkable chiefly for the i 

unusual intensity of his conviction that all virtue consists | 

in respectability. He had a special aversion to " goodness i 
of heart," which he regarded as another name for a quality 

properly called extravagance or vice. Johnson's tenacity of j 
old acquaintance introduced him into the Club, where he 
made himself so disagreeable, especially, as it seems, by 

rudeness to Burke, that he found it expedient to invent a , \ 
pretext for resignation. Johnson called him a " very un- 



I III.] JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 71 

1 
clubable man," and may perhaps have intended him in the 

i| quaint description : " I really believe him to be an honest 

I man at the bottom ; though, to be sure, he is rather 
!j penurious, and he is somewhat mean ; and it must be owned 
!; he has some degree of brutality, and is not without a ten- 

II dency to savageness that cannot well be defended." 

I • In a list of Johnson's friends it is proper to men- 

j tion Eichardson and Hawkesworth. Eichardson seems 
to have given him substantial help, and was repaid by 

I favourable comparisons with Fielding, scarcely borne out 
by the verdict of posterity. ^^ Fielding," said Johnson, 
"could tell the hour by looking at the clock; whilst 
Eichardson knew how the clock was made." '' There is 
more knowledge of the heart," he said at another time, 
"in one letter of Eichardson's than in all Tom Jonesy 
o ^hnson's preference of the sentimentalist to the man w^hose 
humour and strong sense were so like his own, shows how 
much his criticism was biassed by his prejudices ; though, 
of course, Eichardson's external decency was a recommen- 
dation to the moralist. Hawkesworth's intimacy with 
Johnson seems to have been chiefly in the period between 
the Dictionary and the pension. He was considered to be 
Jolmson's best imitator ; and has vanished like other imi- 
tators. His fate, very doubtful if the story believed at the 
time be true, was a curious one for a friend of Johnson's. 
He had made some sceptical remarks as to the efficacy of 
prayer in his preface to the South Sea Voyages ; and was so 
bitterly attacked by a " Christian" in the papers, that he 

' destroyed himself by a dose of opium. 

Two younger friends, who became disciples of the sage 
soon after the appearance of the Rambler^ are prominent 
figures in the later circle. One of these was Bennet Jiang- 
ton, a man of good family, fine scholarship, and very 



^72 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap, f 

amiable character. His exceedingly tall and slender figure 
was compared by Best to the stork in Eaphael's cartoon of 
the Miraculous Draught of Fishes. Miss Hawkins describes •? 
him sitting with one leg twisted round the other as though 
to occupy the smallest possible space, and playing with his 
gold snufip-box with a mild countenance and sweet smile. 
The gentle, modest creature was loved by Johnson, who 
could warm into unusual eloquence in singing his praises. 
The doctor, however, was rather fond of discussing with i 
Boswell the faults of his friend. They seem to have chiefly 
consisted in a certain languor or sluggishness of tempera- 
ment which allowed his affairs to get into perplexity. Once, 
when arguing the delicate question as to the propriety of 
telling a friend of his wife's unfaithfulness, Boswell, after 
his peculiar fashion, chose to enliven the abstract statement 
by the purely imaginary hypothesis of Mr. and Mrs. Lang- 
ton being in this position. Johnson said that it would 
be useless to tell Langton, because he would be too sluggish 
to get a divorce. Once Langton was the unconscious 
cause of one of Johnson's oddest performances. Langton 
had employed Chambers, a common friend of his and 
Johnson's, to draw his will. Johnson, talking to Cham- 
bers and Boswell, was suddenly struck by the absurdity 
of his friend's appearing in the character of testator. His 
companions, however, were utterly unable to see in what 
the joke consisted ; but Johnson laughed obstreperously 
and irrepressibly : he laughed till he reached the Temple | 
Gate ; and when in Fleet Street went almost into convul- 
sions of hilarity. Holding on by one of the posts in the 
street, he sent forth such peals of laughter that they seemed 
in the silence of the night to resound from Temple Bar to 
Fleet Ditch. 

Jfot long before his death, Johnson applied to Langton 



il 



I in.] JOHNSON AND HIS FMENDS. 73 

for spiritual advice. " I desired him to tell me sincerely 
j in what he thought my life was faulty." Langton wrote 
! upon a sheet; of paper certain texts recommending Christian 
j charity ; and explained, upon inquiry, that he was pointing 
I at Johnson's habit of contradiction. The old doctor began 
,1 by thanking him earnestly for his kindness ; but gradually 
I waxed savage and asked Langton, "in a loud and angry 
j tone, What is your drift, sir ? '* He complained of the well- 
- meant advice to Boswell, with a sense that he had been 
I unjustly treated. It was a scene for a comedy, as Eey- 
j nolds observed, to see a penitent get into a passion and 
j belabour his confessor. 

' Through Langton, Johnson became acquainted with the 
friend whose manner was in the strongest contrast to his 
•^ own. Topham Beauclerk was a man of fashion. He was 
commended to Johnson by a likeness to Charles IL, from 
whom he was descended, being the grandson of the first 
, Duke of St. Alban's. Beauclerk was a man of literary and 
scientific tastes. He inherited some of the moral laxity 
which Johnson chose to pardon in his ancestor. Some 
years after his acquaintance with Boswell he married Lady 
Diana Spencer, a lady who had been divorced upon his 
r account from her husband, Lord Bolingbroke. But he 
took care not to obtrude his faults of life, whatever they 
may have been, upon the old moralist, who entertained 
for him a peculiar afiection. He specially admired Beau- 
clerk's skill in the use of a more polished, if less vigorous, 
I style of conversation than his own. He envied the ease 
»\ with which Beauclerk brought out his sly incisive retorts. 
" No man," he said, " ever was so free when he was going 
to say a good thing, from a look that expressed that it was 
coming ; or, when he had said it, from a lock that ex- 
pressed that it had come." When Beauclerk was dying 



74 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

(in 1780), Johnson said, with a faltering voice, that he lyoi 
would walk to the extremity of the diameter of the earth i; 
to save him. Two little anecdotes are expressive of his \i^j 
tender feeling for this incongruous friend. Bos well had 
asked him to sup at Beauclerk's. He started, but, on the 1^ 
way, recollecting himself, said, *^ I cannot go ; but / do 
not love Bevmderk the less^ Beauclerk had put upon a 
portrait of J^aison the inscription, — 

Ingenium ingens 
Tnculto latet hoc sub corpore. 

Langton, who bought the portrait, had the inscription 
removed. "I. was kind in you to take it off," said 
Johnson; and, ^ jcter a short pause, " not unkind in him to 
put it on.'' 

Early in theii acquaintance, the two young men, Beau 
and Lanky, as J .ihnson called them, had sat up one night 
at a tavern till three in the morning. The courageous 
thought struck them that they would knock up the old 
philosopher. Ho came to the door of his chambers, poker 
in hand, with an old wig for a nightcap. On hearing their 
errand, the sage exclaimed, " What ! is it you, you dogs ] 
I'll have a frisk with you." And so Johnson with the 
two youths, his juniors by about thirty years, proceeded 
to make a night of it. They amazed the fruiterers in 
Covent Garden ; they brewed a bowl of bishop in a tavern, 
while Johnson quoted the poet's address to Sleep, — 

** Short, O short, be then thy reign. 
And give us to the world again ! '* 

Hey took a boat to Billingsgate, and Johnson, with 
Beauclerk, kept up their amusement for the following day, 
when Langton deserted them to go to breakfast with some 



III.] JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 75 

; young ladies, and Johnson scolded him for leaving his 

] friends "to go and sit with a parcel of wretched unidedd 

I girls." "I shall have my old friend to hail out of the 

I round-house," said Garrick when he heard of this queer 

' alliance ; and he told Johnson that he would be in the 

'I 

[I Chronicle for his frolic. " He durst not do such a thin^* 

)i , , 

j His wife would not let him," was the moralist's retort. 
I Some friends, known to fame hy other titles than their 
connexion with Johnson, had by this time gathered round 
j them. Among them was one, whose art he was unable 
i to appreciate, but whose fine social qualities and dignified 
I equability of temper made him a valued and respected 
' companion. Eeynolds had settled in London at the end 
of 1752. Johnson met him at the house of Miss Cotterell. 
i Reynolds had specially admired Johnson's Life of Savage, 
and, on their first meeting, happened to make a remark 
which delighted Johnson. The ladies were regretting the 
loss of a friend to whom they were under obligations. 
" You have, however," said Eeynolds, " the comfort of 
being relieved from a burden of gratitude." The saying is 
a little too much like Eochefoucauld, and too true to be 
pleasant; but it was one of those keen remarks which 
Johnson appreciated because they prick a bubble of com- 
monplace moralizing without demanding too literal an accep- 
tation. He went home to sup with Eeynolds and became 
his intimate friend. On another occasion, Johnson was 
offended by two ladies of rank at the same house, and by 
way of taking down their pride, asked Eeynolds in a loud 
^ voice, " How much do you think you and I could get in 
a week, if we both worked as hard as we could ? " " His 
appearance," says Sir Joshua's sister, Miss Eeynolds, 
" might suggest the poor author : as he was not likely in 
that place to be a blacksmith or a porter." Poor Miss 
F 



76 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

Eeynolds, who tells this story, was another attraction to (i 
Reynolds' house. She was a shy, retiring maiden lady, 
who vexed her famous brother by following in his steps 
without his talents, and was deeply hurt by his annoyance 
at the unintentional mockery. Johnson was through life 
a kind and judicious friend to her ; and had attracted 4[ 
her on their first meeting by a significant indication of liia 
character. He said that when going home to his lodgings 
at one or two in the morning, he often saw poor children HJ^ 
asleep on thresholds and stalls — the wretched " street 
Arabs" of the day — and that he used to put pennies into 1^ 
their hands that they might buy a breakfast. 

Two friends, who deserve to be placed beside Eeynolds, 
came from Ireland to seek their fortunes in London, i) 
Edmund Eurke, incomparably the greatest writer upon-^j 
political philosophy in English literature, the master of a 
style unrivalled for richness, flexibility, and vigour, was i 
radically opposed to Johnson on party questions, though J 
his language upon the French Eevolution, after Johnson's 
death, would have satisfied even the strongest prejudices If 
of his old friend. But he had qualities which commended [ 
him even to the man who called him a ^' bottomless 1 
Whig," and who generally spoke of Whigs as rascals, and If^j 
maintained that the first Whig was the devil. If his 
intellect was wider, his heart was as warm as Johnson's, 
and in conversation he merited the generous applause and 
warm emulation of his friends. Johnson was never tired of 
praising the extraordinary readiness and spontaneity ofr 
Burke's conversation. '* If a man," he said, " went under'^, 
a shed at the same time with Burke to avoid a shower, 
he would say, * This is an extraordinary man.' Or if; 
Burke went into a stable to see his horse dressed, the ostler 
^ould say, * We have had an extraordinary man here/ ''; 



jiiTj JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 11 

\ 

I 

When Burke was first going into Parliament, Johnson 
said in answer to Hawkins, who wondered that snch a man 
^should get a seat, " We who know Mr. Burke, know that 
he will be one of the first men in the country." Speaking 
of certain other members of Parliament, more after the 
heart of Sir John Hawkins, he said that he grudged success 
[ito a man who made a figure by a knowledge of a few 
forms, though his mind was "as narrow as the neck of a 
vinegar cruet f but then he did not grudge Burke's being 
the first man in the House of Commons, for he would be 
the first man everywhere. And Burke equally admitted 
Johnson's supremacy in conversation. "It is enough foi 
me," he said to some one who regretted Johnson's monopoly 
of the talk on a particular occasion, " to have rung the 
bell for him." 

The other Irish adventurer, whose career was more 
nearly moulded upon that of Johnson, came to London in 
1756, and made Johnson's acquaintance. Some time 
afterwards (in or before 1761) Goldsmith, like Johnson, 
I had tasted the bitterness of an usher's life, and escaped 
j into the scarcely more tolerable regions of Grub Street. 
!j After some years of trial, he was becoming known to the 
f booksellers as a serviceable hand, and had two works in 
I his desk destined to lasting celebrity. His landlady 
j (apparently 1764) one day arrested him for debt. Johnson, 
j summoned to his assistance, sent him a guinea and speedily 
i followed. The guinea had already been changed, and 
I Goldsmith was consoling himself with a bottle of Madeira. 
? Johnson corked the bottle, and a discussion of ways and 
J means brought out the manuscript of the Vicar of WaJce- 
I field. Johnson looked into it, took it to a bookseller, got 
1^ sixty pounds for it, and returned to Goldsmith, who paid 
I his rent and administered a sound rating to his landlady. 

i 



II 



i 



IS SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap 

The relation thus indicated is characteristic ; Johuson 
was as a rough but helpful elder brother to poor Gold- 
smith, gave him advice, sympathy, and applause, and at 
times criticised him pretty sharply, or brought down hisf ^ 
conversational bludgeon upon his sensitive friend. ** He 
has nothing of the bear but his skin," was Goldsmith's 
comment upon his clumsy friend, and the two men appre- 
ciated each other at bottom. Some of their readers may 
be inclined to resent Johnson's attitude of superiority. 
The admirably pure and tender heart, and the exquisite 
intellectual refinement implied in the Vicar and the- 
Traveller, force us to love Goldsmith in spite of super- |i 
ncial foibles, and when Johnson prunes or interpolates! 
lines in the Traveller, we feel as though a woodman's axe 
was hacking at a most delicate piece of carving. The'^ 
evidence of contemporary observers, however, must force i" 
impartial readers to admit that poor Goldsmith's foibles 
were real, however amply compensated by rare and admi-tJ 
rable qualities. Garrick's assertion, that he " wrote like 'I 
an angel but talked like poor Poll," expresses the unani- 
mous opinion of all who had actually seen him. Un- 
doubtedly some of the stories of his childlike vanity, his 
frankly expressed envy, and his general capacity for blun- 



dering, owe something to Boswell's feeling that he was^ 
a rival near the throne, and sometimes poor Goldsmith 'sJ 
humorous self-assertion may have been taken too seriously 't 
by blunt English wits. One may doubt, for example, - 
whether he was really jealous of a puppet tossing a pike,s 
and unconscious of his absurdity in saying ^' Pshaw ! If 
could do it better myself!" Bos well, however, was too- 
good an observer to misrepresent at random, and he has,^ 
in fact, explained very well the true meaning of his 
remarks, G oldsmith was an excitable Irishman of geaius, - 



1.3 JOHNSON AND HIS FEIENDS. 19 



fivho tumbled out whatever came uppermost, and revealed 
ihe feelings of the moment with utter want of reserve, 
it 'iJBis self-controlled companions wondered, ridiculed, mis- 
interpreted, and made fewer hits as well as fewer misses. 
jjHis anxiety to "get in and shine," made him, according 
ijto Johnson, an " unsocial " companion. ^' Goldsmith," he 
ifeaid, " bad not temper enough for the game he played. He 
jstaked too much. A man might always get a fall from 
his inferior in the chances of talk, and Goldsmith felt his 
|frdls too keenly." He had certainly some trials of temper 
in Johnson's company. "Stay, stay," said a German, 
I stopping him in the full flow of his eloquence, " Toctor 
Johnson is going to say something." An Eton Master 
called Graham, who was supping with the two doctors, 
and had got to the pitch of looking at one person, and 
talking to another, said, " Doctor, I shall he glad to see 
you at Eton." " I shall be glad to wait on you," said 
Goldsmith. " No," replied Graham, " 'tis not you I mean. 
Doctor Minor; 'tis Doctor Major there." Poor Gold- 
! smith said afterwards, " Graham is a fellow to make one 
commit suicide." 

Boswellwho attributes some of Goldsmith's sayings about 

[Johnson to envy, said with probable truth that Goldsmith 

i had not more envy than others, but only spoke of it more 

<| freely. Johnson argued that we must be angry with a 

[ man who had so much of an odious quality that he could 

J not keep it to himself, but let it " boil over." The feeling, 

rv at any rate, was momentary and totally free from malice ; 

f and Goldsmith's criticisms upon Johnson and his idola- 

y tors seem to have been fair enough. His objection to 

Boswell's substituting a monarchy for a republic has 

aheady been mentioned. At another time he checked 

Boswell's flow of panegyric by asking, " Is he like Burke, 



80 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

who winds into a subject like a serpent]" To which 
Boswell replied with charming irrelevance, ^' Johnson is 
the Hercules who strangled serpents in his cradle." The 
last of Goldsmith's hits was suggested by Johnson's 
shaking his sides with laughter because Goldsmith admired 
the skill with which the little fishes in the fable were made 
to talk in character. *' Why, Dr. Johnson, this is not so 
easy as you seem to think," was the retort, " for if you were 
to make little fishes talk, they would talk like whales." 

In spite of sundry little sparrings, Johnson fully appre- 
ciated Goldsmith's genius. Possibly his authority hastened 
the spread of public appreciation, as he seemed to claim, 
whilst repudiating Bos well's too flattering theory that 
it had materially raised Goldsmith's position. When 
Reynolds quoted the authority of Fox in favour of the 
Traveller, saying that his friends might suspect that they 
had been too partial, Johnson replied very truly that the 
Traveller was beyond the need of Fox's praise, and that 
the partiality of Goldsmith's friends had always been 
against him. They would hardly give him a hearing. 
** Goldsmith," he added, " was a man who, whatever he 
wrote, always did it better than any other man could 
do." Johnson's settled opinion in fact was that embodied \ 
in the famous epitaph with its " nihil tetigit quod non 
ornavit," and, though dedications are perhaps the only 
literary product more generally insincere than epitaphs, we 
may believe that Goldsmith too meant what he said in the 
dedication of She Stoops to Conquer. **It may do me 
some honour to inform the public that I have lived many 
years in intimacy with you. It may serve the interests 
of mankind also to inform them that the greatest wit may 
be found in a character, -vrithout impairing the most un- 
affected piety." 



ii-l JOHNSON AND HIS FRIEN'DS. 81 

ij Though Johnson was thus rich in friendship, two con- 
flexions have still to be noticed which had an exceptional 
bearing upon his fame and happiness. In January, 1765, 
|ie made the acquaintance of the Thrales. Mi\ Thrale 
i'jwas the proprietor of the brewery which afterwards 
ifbecame that of Barclay and Perkins. He was married in 
|1763 to a Miss Hester Lynch Salisbury, who has become 
jcelebrated from her friendship with Johnson.' She was 
I a woman of great vivacity and independence of character. 
I She had a sensitive and passionate, if not a very tender 
j nature, and enough literary culture to appreciate Johnson's 
I intellectual power, and on occasion to play a very respect- 
,' able part in conversation. She had far more Latin and 
English scholarship than fell to the lot of most ladies of 
r her day, and wit enough to preserve her from degenerating 
i like some of the "blues," into that most offensive of 
beings— a feminine prig. Her marriage had been one of 
convenience, and her husband's want of sympathy, and 
jealousy of any interference in business matters, forced 
her, she says, to take to literature as her sole resource. 
'' No wonder," she adds, " if I loved my books and 
children." It is, perhaps, more to be wondered at that 
her children seem to have had a rather subordinate place 
in her affections. The marriage, however, though not of 
the happiest, was perfectly decorous. Mrs. Thrale dis- 
charged her domestic duties irreproachably, even when 
she seems to have had some real cause of complaint. To 
the world she eclipsed her husband, a solid respectable 
^ man, whose mind, according to Johnson, struck the houra 
very regularly, though it did not mark the minutes. 

1 Mrs. Thrale was bom in 1740 or 1741, probably the latter. 
Thrale was born in 1724. 



82 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [ch^ 

The Thrales were introduced to Johnson by theii 
common friend, Arthur Murphy, an actor and dramatist, 
who afterwards became the editor of Johnson's works. 
One day, when calling upon Johnson, they found him in 
such a fit of despair that Thrale tried to stop his mouth 
by placing his hand before it. The pair then joined in 
begging Johnson to leave his solitary abode, and come to 
them at their country-house at Streatham. He complied, 
and for the next sixteen years a room was set apart for 
him, both at Streatham and in their house in Southwark. 
He passed a large part of his time with them, and derived 
from the intimacy most of the comfort of his later years. 
He treated Mrs. Thrale with a kind of paternal gallantry, 
her age at the time of their acquaintance being about 
twenty-four, and his fifty-five. He generally called her by 
the playful name of " my mistress," addressed little poems 
to her, gave her solid advice, and gradually came to con- 
fide to her his miseries and ailments with rather surprising 
frankness. She flattered and amused him, and soothed 
his sufferings and did something towards humanizing his 
rugged exterior. There was one little grievance between 
them which requires notice. Johnson's pet virtue in 
private life was a rigid regard for truth. He spoke, it was 
said of him, as if he was always on oath. He would not, 
for example, allow his servant to use the phrase '* not at 
home," and even in the heat of conversation resisted the 
temptation to give point to an anecdote. The lively Mrs. 
Thrale rather fretted against the restraint, and Johnson 
admonished her in vain. He complained to Boswell that 
she was willing to have that said of her, which the best 
of mankind had died rather than have said of them. 
Boswell, the faithful imitator of his master in this respect, 
delighted in taking ap the parable. " Now, madam, give 



III.] JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 83 

me leave to catch you in the fact," he said on one 
occasion ; " it was not an old woman, but an old man whom 
I mentioned, as having told me this," and he recounts his 
check to the " lively lady " with intense complacency. As 
may be imagined. Bos well and Mrs. Thrale did not love 
each other, in spite of the well-meant efforts of the sage to 
bring about a friendly feeling between his disciples. 

It is time to close this list of friends with the inimitable 
Boswell. James Boswell, born in 1740, was the eldest 
son of a Whig laird and lord of sessions. He had acquired 
some English friends at the Scotch universities, among 
whom must be mentioned Mr. Temple, an English clergy- 
man. Boswell's correspondence with Temple, discovered 
years after his death by a singular chance, and published 
in 1857, is, after the Life of Johnson, one of the most 
curious exhibitions of character in the language. Boswell 
was intended for the Scotch bar, and studied civil law at 
Utrecht in the winter of 1762. It was in the following 
summer that he made Johnson's acquaintance. 

Perhaps the fundamental quality in Boswell's character 
was his intense capacity for enjoyment. He was, as Mr. 
Carlyle puts it, " gluttonously fond of whatever would 
yield him a little solacement, were it only of a stomachic 
character." His love of good living and good drink would 
j have made him a hearty admirer of his countryman, 
( Burns, had Burns been famous in Boswell's youth. Ko- 
! body could have joined with more thorough abandonment 
K in the chorus to the poet's liveliest songs in praise of love 
]' and wine. He would have made an excellent fourth when 
i " Willie brewed a peck of malt, and Eab and Allan came 
I to see," and the drinking contest for the Whistle comme- 
I morated in another lyric would have excited his keenest 
i interest. He was always delighted when he could get 



84 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chaf. 



Johnson to discuss the ethics and statistics of drinking. 
'I am myself," he says, "a lover of wine, and therefore 
curious to hear whatever is remarkable concerning drink- 
ing." The remark is a propos to a story of Dr. Campheli 
drinking thirteen bottles of port at a sitting. Lest this 
should seem incredible, he quotes Johnson's dictum. ^' Sir, 
if a man drinks very slowly and lets one glass evaporate 
before he takes another, I know not how long he may 
drink." Bos well's faculty for making love was as great as 
his power of drinking. His letters to Temple record 
with amusing frankness the vicissitudes of some of his 
courtships and tlie versatility of his passions. 

Boswell's tastes, however, were by no means limited to 
sensual or frivolous enjoyments. His appreciation of the 
bottle w^as combined with an equally hearty sensibility to 
more intellectual pleasures. He had not a spark of philo- 
sophic or poetic power, but within the ordinary range of 
such topics as can be discussed at a dinner-party, he had an 
abundant share of liveliness and intelligence. His palate 
was as keen for good talk as for good wine. He was an 
admirable recipient, if not an originator, of shrewd or 
humorous remarks upon life and manners. What in regard 
to sensual enjoyment was mere gluttony, appeared in 
higher matters as an insatiable curiosity. At times this 
faculty became intolerable to his neighbours. ^'1 will 
not be baited with what and why," said poor Jolmson, 
one day in desperation. *^Why is a cow's tail long] 
Why is a fox's tail bushy ? " " Sir," said Johnson on 
another occasion, when Boswell was cross-examining a 
third person about him in his presence. " You have but 
two subjects, yourself and me. I am sick of both." 
Boswell, however, was not to be repelled by such a 
retort as this, or even by ruder rebuffs. Once when dis- 



III.] JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 85 

cussing tlie means of getting a friend to leave London, 
Johnson said in revenge for a previous offence. " Nay, 
sir, we*ll send you to him. If your presence doesn't drive 
a man out of his house, nothing v^ill." Boswell was 
" horribly shocked," but he still stuck to his victim like a 
leech, and pried into the minutest details of his life and 
manners. He observed with conscientious accuracy that 
though Johnson abstained from milk one fast-day, he did 
not reject it when put in his cup. He notes the whistlings 
and puffings, the trick of saying '' too-too-too " of his idol : 
and it was a proud day when he won a bet by venturing 
to ask Johnson what he did with certain scraped bits of 
orange-peel. His curiosity was not satisfied on this 
occasion; but it would have made him the prince of 
interviewers in these days. Nothing delighted him so 
much as rubbing shoulders with any famous or notorious 
person. He scraped acquaintance with Voltaire, Wesley, 
Eousseau, and Paoli, as well as with Mrs. Eudd, a for- 
gotten heroine of the Newgate Calendar, He was as 
eager to talk to Hume the sceptic, or Wilkes the dema- 
gogue, as to the orthodox Tory, Johnson; and, if 
repelled, it was from no deficiency in daring. In 1767, 
he took advantage of his travels in Corsica to introduce 
himself to Lord Chatham, then Prime Minister. The 
letter moderately ends by asking, " Could your lordship 
find time to honour me now and then loith a letter ? I 
have been told how favourably your lordship has spoken 
of me. To correspond with a Paoli and with a Chatham 
is enough to keep a young man ever ardent in the pursuit 
of virtuous fame." No other young man of the day, 
we may be sure, would have dared to make such a 
proposal to the majestic orator. 

His absurd vanity, and the greedy craving for notoriety 



86 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

at any cost, would have made Eoswell the most offensive 
of mortals, had not his unfeigned good-hnmoiir disarmed 
enmity. !N'obody could help laughing, or be inclined to 
take offence at his harmless absurdities. Bui^ke said of 
him that he had so much good-humour naturally, that it 
was scarcely a virtue. His vanity, in fact, did not 
generate affectation. Most vain men are vain of qualities 
which they do not really possess, or possess in a lower 
degree than they fancy. They are always acting a part, 
and become touchy from a half- conscious sense of the 
imposture. But Bos well seems to have had few such 
illusions. He thoroughly and unfeignedly enjoyed his 
own peculiarities, and thought his real self much too 
charming an object to be in need of any disguise. ]^o man, 
therefore, was ever less embarrassed by any regard for his 
own dignity. He was as ready to join in a laugh at him- 
self as in a laugh at his neighbours. He reveals his own 
absurdities to the world at large as frankly as Pepys con- 
fided them to a journal in cypher. He tells us how 
drunk he got one night in Skye, and how he cured his 
headache with brandy next morning ; and what an in- 
tolerable fool he made of himself at an evening party in 
London after a dinner with the Duke of Montrose, and 
how Johnson in vain did his best to keep him quiet. His 
motive for the concession is partly the wish to illustrate 
Johnson's indulgence, and, in the last case, to introduce a 
copy of apologetic verses to the lady whose guest he had 
been. He reveals other weaknesses with equal frankness. 
One day, he says, *'I owned to Johnson that I was 
occasionally troubled with a fit of narrowness." *^ Why, 
sir," said he, " so am I. But I do not tell it" BoswelJ 
enjoys the joke far too heartily to act upon the advice 
There is nothing, however, which Boswell seems to have 



III.] JOHNSON AND HIS FBIENDS. 81 

enjoyed more heartily than his o^vn good impulses. He 
looks upon his virtuous resolution with a sort of aesthetic 
satisfaction, and with the glow of a virtuous man contem- 
plating a promising penitent. Whilst suffering severely 
from the consequences of imprudent conduct, he gets a 
letter of virtuous advice from his friend Temple. He in- 
stantly sees himself reformed for the rest of his days. 
" My warm imagination," he says, " looks forward with 
great complacency on the sobriety, the healthfulness, and 
worth of my future life." '^ Every instance of our doing 
those things which we ought notto have done, and leaving 
undone those things which we ought to have done, is 
attended," as he elsewhere sagely observes, '^ with more or 
less of what is truly remorse ;" but he seems rather to have 
enjoyed even the remorse. It is needless to say that the 
complacency was its own reward, and that the resolution 
vanished like other more eccentric impulses. Music, he 
once told Johnson, affected him intensely, producing in 
his mind " alternate sensations of pathetic dejection, so 
that I was ready to shed tears, and of daring resolution 
so that I was inclined to rush into the thickest of the 
[purely hypothetical] battle." '' Sir," replied Johnson, 
" I should never hear it, if it made me such a fool." 
Elsewhere he expresses a wish to " fly to the woods," or 
retire into a desert, a disposition which Johnson checked 
by one of his habitual gibes at the quantity of easily ac- 
cessible desert in Scotland. Eoswell is equally frank in 
r\ describing himself in situations more provocative of con- 
tempt than even drunkenness in a drawing-room. He 
tells us how dreadfully frightened he was by a storm at sea 
in the Hebrides, and how one of his companions, *^ with 
a happy readiness," made him lay hold of a rope fastened 
to the masthead, and told him to pull it when he was 



88 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cHia 

ordered. Boswell was thus kept quiet in mind and harm- 
less -in body. 

This extreme simplicity of character mahes poor Bo&well 
loveable in his way. If he sought notoriety, he did not so far 
mistake his powers as to set up for independent notoriety.^ 
He was content to shine in reflected light: and the 
affectations with which he is charged seem to have been 
unconscious imitations of his crpeat idol. Miss Burnev 
traced some likeness even in his dress. In the later pait 
of the Life we meet phrases in which Boswell is evidently 
aping the true Johnsonian style. So, for example, when 
somebody distinguishes between "moral" and "physical 
necessity;" BosweU exclaims, "Alas, sir, they come both 
to the same thing. You may be as hard bound by chains 
when covered by leather, as when tho iron appears." But 
he specially emulates the profound melancholy of his horo. 
He seems to have taken pride in his sufferings from hypo- 
chondria ; though, in truth, his melancholy diverges from 
Johnson's by as great a difference as that which divides 
any two varieties in Jaques's classification. Boswell^s was 
the melancholy of a man w^ho spends too much, drinks too 
much, falls in love too often, and is forced to live in the 
country in dependence upon a stern old parent, w^hen he 
is longing for a jovial life in London taverns. Still he was 
excusably vexed when Johnson refused to believe in the 
reality of his complaints, and showed scant sympathy to 
his noisy w^ould-be fellow-sufferer. Some of BosweU s freaks 

* The story is often told how Boswell appeared at the Stratford 
Jubilee with '' Corsica Boswell " in large letters on his hat. The 
account given apparently by himself is sufficiently amusing, but 
the statement is not quite fair. Boswell not unnaturally appeared 
at a masquerade in the dress of a Corsican chief, and the icscrip 
tion on his hat seems to have been " Yiva la Libert^" 



rii.] JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 89 

were, in fact, very trying. Once he gave up writing letters 
for a long time, to see whether Johnson would be induced 
y to write first. Johnson became anxious, though he half- 
guessed the truth, and in reference to Eos well's confession 
gave his disciple a piece of his mind. '' Eemember that 
all tricks are either knavish or childish, and that it is as 
foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend 
as upon the chastity of a wife." 

In other ways Boswell was more successful in aping his 
friend's peculiarities. When in company with Johnson, he 
became delightfully pious. " My dear sir," he exclaimed 
once with unrestrained fervour, " I would fain be a good 
^ man, and I am very good now. I fear God and honour 
) the king ; I wish to do no ill and to be benevolent to all 
mankind." Boswell hopes, " for the felicity of human 
nature," that many experience this mood ; though Johnson 
judiciously suggested that he should not trust too much to 
impressions. In some matters Boswell showed a touch of 
independence by outvying the Johnsonian prejudices. He 
was a warm admirer of feudal principles, and especially 
held to the propriety of entailing property upon heirs male. 
Johnson had great difficulty in persuading him to yield to 
his father's wishes, in a settlement of the estate which con- 
travened this theory. But Boswell takes care to declare 
that his opinion was not shaken. '^ Yet let me not be 
thought," he adds, " harsh or unkind to daughters ; for my 
, notion is that they should be treated with great affection 
I and tenderness, and always participate of the prosperity 
T of the family." His estimate of female rights is indicated 
in another phrase. When Mrs. Knowles, the Quaker, 
expressed a hope that the sexes would be equal in another 
world, Boswell replied, " That is too ambitious, madam. 
We might as well desire to be equal with the angels." 



90 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap, 

Boswell, again, differed from Johnson- who, in spite of his 
love of authority, had a righteous hatred for all recognized 
tyranny — by advocating the slave-trade. To abolish that 
trade would, he says, be robbery of the masters and cruelty 
to the African savages. J^ay, he declares, to abolish it 
would be 

To shut the gates of merey on mankind ! 

Boswell was, according to Johnson, " the best travelling 
companion in the world." In fact, for such purposes, un- 
failing good-humour and readiness to make talk at all 
hazards are high recommendations. "If, sir, you were 
shut up in a castle and a new-born baby with you, what 
would you do ? " is one of his questions to Johnson, — 
a propos of nothing. That is exquisitely ludicrous, no 
doubt ; but a man capable of preferring such a remark to 
silence helps at any rate to keep the ball rolling. A more 
objectionable trick was his habit not only of asking pre- 
posterous or indiscreet questions, but of setting people by 
the ears out of sheer curiosity. The appearance of so queer 
a satellite excited astonishment among Johnson's friends. 
" Who is this Scotch cur at Johnson's heels'?" asked some 
one. " He is not a cur," replied Goldsmith ; " he is only 
a bur. Tom Davies flung him at Johnson in sport, and 
he has the faculty of sticking." The bur stuck till the end 
of Johnson's life. Boswell visited London whenever he 
could, and soon began taking careful notes of Johnson's 
talk. His appearance, when engaged in this task long 
afterwards, is described by Miss Burney. Boswell, she 
says, concentrated his whole attention upon his idol, not, 
even answering questions from others. When Johnson 
spoke, his eyes goggled with eagerness ; he leant his ear 
almost on the Doctor's shoulder 3 his mouth dropped open 



III.] JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. n 

(jto catch every syllable ; and lie seemed to listen even to 
Johnson's breathings as though they had some mystical 
jsignificance. He took every opportunity of edging him- 
iself close to Johnson's side even at meal-times^ and was 
;;; sometimes ordered imperiously hack to his place like a 
I faithful but over-obtrusive spaniel. 

I It is hardly surprising that Johnson should have 
been touched by the fidelity of this queer follower. Bos- 
well, modestly enough, attributes Johnson's easy welcome 
to his interest in all manifestations of the human mind, 
and his pleasure in an undisguised display of its workings. 
The last pleasure was certainly to be obtained in Boswell's 
j society. But in fact Boswell, though his qualities were 
I too much those of the ordinary " good fellow," was not 

f without virtues, and still less without remarkable talents. 

i 

He was, to all appearance, a man of really generous sym- 
pathies, and capable of appreciating proofs of a warm heart 

I and a vigorous understanding. Foolish, vain, and absurd in 
V,very way, he was yet a far kindlier and more genuine man ' 
than many who laughed at him. His singular gifts as an 
observer could only escape notice from a careless or inexpe- 
rienced reader. Boswell has a little of the true Shaksperian 
secret. He lets his characters show themselves without 
obtruding unnecessary comment. He never misses the 
point of a story, though he does not ostentatiously call oui 
attention to it. He gives just what is wanted to indicate 
character, or to explain the full meaning of a repartee. 
It is not till we compare his reports with those of 

' less skilful hearers, that we can appreciate the skill with 
which the essence of a conversation is extracted, and the 
whole scene indicated by a few telling touches. We are 
tempted to fancy that we have heard the very thing, and 
rashly infer that Boswell w^as simply the mechanical trans - 
G 



92 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

mitter of the good tilings uttered. Any one who will try to 
put down tlie pith of a brilliant conversation within the 
same space, may soon satisfy himself of the absurdity of such f 
an hypothesis, and will learn to appreciate Boswell's powers ;' 
not only of memory but artistic representation. Such a r 
feat implies not only admirable quickness of appreciation, i 
but a rare literary faculty. Boswell's accuracy is remark- [ 
able ; but it is the least part of his merit. 

The book which so faithfully reflects the. peculiarities of . 
its hero and its author became the first specimen of a new : 
literary type. Johnson himself was a master in one kind i 
of biography ; that which sets forth a condensed and i 
vigorous statement of the essentials of a man's life and I 
character. Other biographers had given excellent memoirs ! 
of men considered in relation to the chief historical currents i 
of the time. But a full-length portrait of a man's domestic | 
life with enough picturesque detail to enable us to see | 
him through the eyes of private friendship did not exist ' 
in the language. Boswell's originality and merit may be I 
tested by comparing his book to the ponderous pe/form- 
ance of Sir John Hawkins, or to the dreary dissertations, 
falsely called lives, of which Dugald Stewart's Life of 
Robertson may be taken for a type. The writer is so 
anxious to be dignified and philosophical that the despair- 
ing reader seeks in vain for a single vivid touch, and 
discovers even the main facts of the hero's life by some 
indirect allusion. Boswell's example has been more or 
less followed by innumerable successors ; and wo owe it 
in some degree to his example that we have such delight- \ 
ful books as Lockhart's Life of Scott or Mr. Trevelyan's 
Life of Macavlay, Yet no later biographer has been quite 
as fortunate in a subject ; and Boswell remains isnot only 
the first, but the best of his class. 



jiil.] JOHNSON AND HIS FRIENDS. 93 

I One special merit implies something like genius. Macanlay 
has given to the usual complaint which distorts the vision 
j J, j of most biographers the name of lues BoswelUana. It is 
j true that Boswell*s adoration of his hero is a typical ex- 
j ample of the feeling. But that which distinguishes Bos- 
I well, and renders the phrase unjust, is that in him adoration 
' never hindered accuracy of portraiture. " I will not make 
' my tiger a cat to please anybody," was his answer to well- 
meaning entreaties of Hannah More to soften his accounts 
of Johnson's asperities. He saw instinctively that a man 
who is worth anything loses far more than he gains by 
such posthumous flattery. The whole picture is toned 
down, and the lights are depressed as well as the shadows. 
The truth is that it is unscientific to consider a man as a 
bundle of separate good and bad qualities, of which one 
half may be concealed without inj ary to the rest. John- 
son's fits of bad temper, like Goldsmith's blundering, must 
be unsparingly revealed by a biographer, because they are 
in fact expressions of the whole character. It is necessary 
to take them into account in order really to understand either 
the merits or the shortcomings. When they are softened or 
omitted, the whole story becomes an enigma, and we are 
often tempted to substitute some less creditable explana- 
tion of errors for the true one. We should not do justice 
to Johnson's intense tenderness, if we did not see how 
often it was masked by an irritability pardonable in itself, 
and not afiecting the deeper springs of action. To bring 
out the beauty of a character by means of its external 
oddities is the triumph of a kindly humourist ; and Bos- 
well would have acted as absurdly in suppressing Johnson's 
weaknesses, as Sterne would have done had he made Uncle 
Toby a perfectly sound and rational person. But to see 
this required an insight so rare that it is wanting in nearly 



^* SAMUEL JOHNSON. ("chap, 

aU the biographers who have followed Boswell's steps 
and IS the most conclusive proof that Boswell was a man 
of a higer inteUectual capacity than has been generally 



I 



jfv.^ JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 



MO 



I 

I CHAPTEE IV. 

JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 

j We have now reached the point at which Johnson's life 
becomes distinctly visible through the eyes of a competent 
I observer. The last twenty years are those which are 
I really familiar to us ; and little remains but to give some 
; brief selection of Boswell's anecdotes. The task, however, 
is a difficult one. It is easy enough to make a selection 
of the gems of Boswell's narrative ; but it is also inevitable 
that, taken from their setting, they should lose the greatest 
part of their brilliance. We lose all the quaint semi- 
conscious touches of character which make the original so 
fascinating ; and Bos well's absurdities become less amusing 
, when we are able to forget for an instant that the perpe- 
trator is also the narrator. The effort, however, must be 
made ; and it will be best to premise a brief statement of 
the external conditions of the life. 

From the time of the pension until his death, Johnson 
was elevated above the fear of poverty. He had a pleasant 
i refuge' at the Thrales', where much of his time was spent; 
and many friends gathered round him and regarded his 
utterances with even excessive admiration. He had still 
frequent periods of profound depression. His diaries 
reveal an inner life tormented by gloomy forebodings, by 
remorse for past indolence and futile resolutions of amend- 
ment ; but he could always escape from himself to a society 



96 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap.! f^l 



cue 



m 



of friends and admirers. His abandonment of wine seenisf^ 
to have improved his health and diminished the intensity 
of his melancholy fits. His literary activity, however, J 
nearly ceased. He wrote a few political pamphlets inl'"'*' 
defence of Government, and after a long period of indolence!^ ^ 
managed to complete his last cons])icuous work — the Lives\^ 
of the Poets^ which was published in 1779 and 1781. One 
other book of some interest appeared in 1775. It was an 
account of the journey made with Boswellto the Hebrides!- 
in 1773. This journey was in fact the chief interruption'^ 
to the even tenour of his life. He made a tour to Wales- 
with the Thrales in 1774 ; and spent a month with themi 
in Paris in 1775. For the rest of the period he lived! 
chiefly in London or at Streatham, making occasional trips 
to Lichfield and Oxford, or paying visits to Taylor, Lang-j 
ton, and one or two other friends. It was, however, in! 
the London vv^hich he loved so ardently (" a man," lie said' 
once, " who is tired of London is tired of life"), that he was 1 
chiefly conspicuous. There he talked and drank teaj 
inimitably at his friends' houses, or argued and laid| 
down the law to his disciples collected in a tavern instead j 
of Academic groves. Especially he was in aU his glory \ 
at the Club, which began its meetings in February, 1764,' 
and was afterward s known as the Literary Club. This Club 
was founded by Sir Joshua Eeynolds, " our Romulus," as I 
Johnson called him. The original members w^ere Eeynolds, 
Johnson, Burke, JSTugent, Beauclerk, Langton, Goldsmith, 
Chamier, and Hawkins. They met weekly at the Turk's ^ 
Head, in Gerard Street, Soho, at seven o'clock, and the i 
talk generally continued till a late hour. The Club was 
afterwards increased in numbers, and the weekly suppei 
changed to a fortnightly dinner. It continued to thrive, 
and election to it came to be as great an honour in certain 



fv.-] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 97 

?icircles as election to a membersliip of Parliament. Among 
Ithe members elected in Johnson's lifetime were Percy of 
jthe Reliques, Garrick, Sir W. Jones, Boswell, Fox, Stee- 
jlvens, Gibbon, Adam Smith, the Wartons, Sheridan, Dun- 
I ning, Sir Joseph Banks, Windham, Lord Sto well, Malone, 
I and Dr. Burney. What was best in the conversation at 
the time was doubtless to be found at its meetings. 

Johnson's habitual mode of life is described by Dr. 
Maxwell, one of BoswelPs friends, who made his acquain- 
tance in 1754. Maxwell generally called upon him about 
twelve, and found him in bed or declaiming over his tea. 
A levee, chiefly of literary men, surrounded him ; and he 
seemed to be regarded as a kind of oracle to whom every 
one might resort for advice or instruction. After talking 
all the morning, he dined at a tavern, staying late and 
then going to some friend's house for tea, over which he 
again loitered for a long time. Maxwell is puzzled to 
know when he could have read or written. The answer 
seems to be pretty obvious ; namely, that after the publi- 
cation of the Dictionary he wrote very little, and that, 
when he did write, it was generally in a brief spasm of 
feverish energy. One may understand that Johnson should 
have frequently reproached himself for his indolence; 
though he seems to have occasionally comforted himself 
by thinking that he could do good by talking as well as 
by writing. He said that a man should have a part of his 
life to himself ; and compared himself to a physician re- 
tired to a small town from practice in a great city. Bos- 
well, in spite of this, said that he still wondered that 
Johnson had not more pleasure in writing than in not 
writing. " Sir," replied the oracle, " you may wonder." 

I will now endeavour, with Boswell's guidance, to de- 
scribe a few of the characteristic scenes which can be fully 
5* 



98 BAMUBL JOHNSON. [chap. 



enjoyed in his pages alone. The first must be the Intro-] 
duction of Boswell to the sage. Boswell had come to 
London eager for the acquaintance of literary magnates. 
He already knew Goldsmith, who had inflamed his desire! 
for an introduction to Johnson. Once when Boswell spoke 
of Levett, one of Johnson's dependents, Goldsmith had said, J 
*^he is poor and honest, which is recommendation enough' 
to Johnson.'' Another time, when Boswell had wondered - 
at Johnson's kindness to a man of had character, Gold- 
smith had replied, '* He is now become miserable, and that 
insures the protection of Johnson." Boswell had hoped 
for an introduction through the elder Sheridan ; but ( 
Sheridan never forgot the contemptuous phrase in Avhich i 
Johnson had referred to his fellow-pensioner. Possibly S 
Sheridan had heard of one other Johnsonian remark. | 
'* Why, sir," he had said, '' Sherry is dull, naturally dull; [ 
but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to be- \ 
come what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity. ) 
sir, is not in ^N'ature." At another time he said, "Sheri- 
dan cannot bear me ; I bring his declamation to a point." 
" What influence can IVIr. Sheridan have upon the lan- 
guage of this great country by his narrow exertions 1 Sir, 
it is burning a farthing candb at Dover to show light at 
Calais." Boswell, however, was acquainted with Davies, 
an actor turned bookseller, now chiefly remembered by a 
line in Churchill's Rosoiad which is said to have driveu 
him from the stage — 

He mouths a sentence as curs mouth a bone. 

BosweU was drinking tea with Davies and his wife in their 
back parlour when Johnson came into the shop. Davies, 
seeing him through the glass- door, announced his approach 
to Boswell in the spuit of Horatio addressing Hamlet ; 



p.] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 99 

<).!,[' Look, my Lord, it comes !" Davies introduced the 
Iflljfoung Scotchman, who remembered Johnson's proverhial 
i. |)rejudices. ^* Don't tell him where I come from !" cried 
8 Boswell. '^ From Scotland," said Davies roguishly. " Mr. 
jjlTohnson," said Boswell, "I do indeed come from Scot- 
land j but I cannot help it ! " " That, sir," was the first of 
[dohnson's many retorts to his worshipper, " is what a great 
kiiany of your countrymen cannot help." 

Poor Eoswell was stunned ; but he recovered when 
I Johnson observed to Davies, '' What do you think of Gar- 
rick ? He has refused me an order for the play for Miss 
! I Williams because he knows the house will be full, and 
'that an order would be worth three shillings." ^' 0, sir," 
intruded the unlucky Boswell, ^^ I cannot think Mr. Gar- 
^ rick would grudge such a trifle to you." "Sir," replied 
Johnson sternly, " I have known David Garrick longei 
than you have done, and I know no right you have to 
talk to me on the subject." The second blow might have 
crushed a less intrepid curiosity. Boswell, though silenced, 
gradually recovered sufficiently to listen, and afterwards 
to note down parts of the conversation. As the interview 
went on, he even ventured to make a remark or two, which 
were very civilly received ; Davies consoled him at his 
departure by assuring him that the great man liked him 
very well. " I cannot conceive a more humiliating posi- 
tion," said Beauclerk on another occasion, "than to be 
clapped on the back by Tom Davies." For the present, 
however, even Tom Davies was a welcome encourager to 
one who, for the rest, was not easily rebuffed. A few 
days afterwards Boswell ventured a call, was kindly re- 
ceived and detained for some time by " the giant in his 
den." He was still a little afraid of the said giant, who 
had shortly before administered a vigorous retort to his 



100 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap.;^ ^ 

countryman Blair. Blair had asked Johnson whether hel^'^ 
thought that any man of a modern age could have written^ 
Ossian, "Yes, sir/* replied Johnson, *^ many men, many!' 
women, and many children." Boswell, however, got onBI 
very well, and before long had the high honour of drinking 1 
a bottle of port with Johnson at the Mitre, and receiving, j. 
after a little autobiographical sketch, the emphatic ap-lc 
proval, " Give me your hand, I have taken a liking to*] 
you." i 

In a very short time Boswell was on sufficiently easy > 
terms with Johnson, not merely to frequent his levees but!- 
to ask him to dinner at the Mitre. He gathered up,t 
though without the skill of his later performances, some ^ 
fragments of the conversational feast. The great man^ 
aimed another blow or two at Scotch prejudices. To an] 
unlucky compatriot of BoswelFs, who claimed for his coun- ] 
try a great many " noble wild prospects," Johnson replied, i 
** I believe, sir, you have a great many, Norway, too, has I 
noble wild prospects ; and Lapland is remarkable for pro- { 
digious noble wild prospects. But, sir, let me tell you the] 
noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high 1 
road that leads him to England." Though Boswell makes a j 
slight remonstrance about the " rude grandeur of Nature " ' 
as seen in " Caledonia," he sympathized in this with his . 
teacher. Johnson said afterwards, that he never knew any j 
one with " such a gust for London." Before long he was I 
trying BoswelFs tastes by asking him in Greenwich Park, \ 
*' Is not this very fine ?" " Yes, sir," replied the promising i 
disciple, " but not equal to Fleet Street." " You are right, 1 
sir," said the sage ; and BosweU illustrates his dictum by 
the authority of a " very fashionable baronet," and, more- i 
over, a baronet from Eydal, who declared that the fragrance 
of a May evening in the country might be very well, but 






.fv.] JOHNSON AS A LITEEAEY DICTATOE. 101 

slfthat he preferred the smell of a flamheau at the playhouse, 
jln more serious moods Johnson delighted his new disciple 
jby discussions upon' theological, social, and literary topics. 
iIHe argued with an unfortunate friend of Boswell's, whose 
jimind, it appears, had been poisoned by Hume, and who 
i!was, moreover, rash enough to undertake the defence of 
principles of political equality. Johnson's view of all 
' propagators of new opinions was tolerably simple. " Hume, 
and other sceptical innovators," he said, " are vain men, 
and will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will 
not afford sufficient food to their vanity ; so they have 
betaken themselves to error. Truth, sir, is a cow which 
will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone 
to milk the bull." On another occasion poor Eoswell, 
not yet acquainted with the master's prejudices, quoted 
with hearty laughter a " very strange " story which Hume 
had told him of Johnson. According to Hume, Johnson 
had said that he would stand before a battery of cannon 
to restore Convocation to its full powers. " And would I 
not, sir ? " thundered out the sage with flashing eyes and 
threatening gestures. Boswell judiciously bowed to the 
storm, and diverted Johnson's attention. Another mani- 
festation of orthodox prejudice was less terrible. Boswell 
told Johnson that he had heard a Quaker woman preach. 
'* A woman's preaching," said Johnson, " is like a dog's 
walking on his hind legs. It is not done well ; but you 
are surprised to find it done at all." 

So friendly had the pair become, that when Boswell left 
England to continue his studies at Utrecht, Johnson accom- 
panied him in the stage-coach to Harwich, amusing him 
on the way by his frankness of address to fellow-passen- 
gers, and by the voracity of his appetite. He gave him 
some excellent advice, remarking of a moth which fiut- 



It 



102 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chaf; 

tered into a candle, " that creature was its own tormentor, | 
and I believe its name was Boswell." He refuted Berkeley 
by striking his foot with mighty force against a large 
stone, till he rebounded from it. As the ship put out tof 
sea Boswell watched him from the deck, whilst he remained '\ 
" rolling his majestic frame in his usual manner." And 
so the friendship was cemented, though Boswell disap- 
peared for a time from the scene, travelled on the Conti- 
nent, and visited Paoli in Corsica. A friendly letter or two 
kept up the connexion till Boswell returned in 1766, with 
his head full of Corsica and a projected book of travels. 

In the next year, 1767, occurred an incident upon which 
Boswell dwells with extreme complacency. Johnson was 
in the habit of sometimes reading in the King's Library, | 
and it came into the head of his majesty that he should [ 
like to see the uncouth monster upon whom he had be- 
stowed a pension. In spite of his semi-humorous Jacobi- 
tism, there was probably not a more loyal subject in his 
majesty's dominions. Loyalty is a word too often used 
to designate a sentiment worthy only of valets, advertising 
tradesmen, and writers of claptrap articles. But it deserves 
all respect when it reposes, as in Johnson's case, upon a 
profound conviction of the value of political subordina- 
tion, and an acceptance of the king as the authorized 
representative of a great principle. There was no touch of j 
servility in Johnson's respect for his sovereign, a respect ' 
fully reconcilable with a sense of his own personal dignity, 
Johnson spoke of his interview w^th an unfeigned satisfac- 
tion, which it would be difficult in these days to preserve 
from the taint of snobbishness. He described it frequently 
to his friends, and Boswell with pious care ascertained 
the details irom Johnson himself, and from various secon- 
daiy sour:;es. He contrived afterwards to get his minute 



^Jv ] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR 103 

jsubmitted to the King himself, who graciously authorized 
Its publication. When he was preparing his biography, 
Jlie published this account with the letter to Chesterfield 
lin a small pamphlet sold at a prohibitory price, in order 
jjto secure the copyright. 

" I find," said Johnson afterwards, ** that it does a man 
good to be talked to by his sovereign. In the first place 
a man cannot be in a passion." What other advantages 
he perceived must be unknown, for here the oracle was 
interrupted. But whatever the advantages, it could 
hardly be reckoned amongst them, that there would be 
room for the hearty cut and thrust retorts which enlivened 
his ordinary talk. To us accordingly the conversation is 
chiefly interesting as illustrating what Johnson meant by 
his politeness. He found that the King vfanted him to 
ilk, and he talked accordingly. He spoks in a *^firm 
manly manner, with a sonorous voice," and not in the 
subdued tone customary at formal receptions. He dilated 
upon various literary topics, on the libraries of Oxford 
and Cambridge, on some contemporary controversies, on 
the quack Dr. Hill, and upon the reviews of the day. All 
that is worth repeating is a complimentary passage which 
shows Johnson's possession of that courtesy which rests 
upon sense and self-respect. The King asked whether he 
was writing anything, and Johnson excused himself by 
saying that he had told the world what he knew for the 
present, and had " done his part as a writer." ** I should 
have thought so too," said the King, ^'ii you had not 
written so well." " l^o man," said Johnson, " could have 
paid a higher compliment ; and it was fit for a King to 
pay — it was decisive." When asked if he had replied, he 
said, ** No, sir. When the King had said it, it was to be. 
It was not for me to bandy civilities with my sovereign." 



104 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [ch^p.: 

Johnson was not the less delighted. ^^ Sir," he said to j 
the librarian, " they may talk of the King as they will, | 
but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen." And !; 
he afterwards compared his manners to those of Louis 
XIY., and his favourite, Charles II. Goldsmith, says'; 
Eoswell, was silent during the narrative, because (so his 
kind friend supposed) he was jealous of the honour paid 
to the dictator. But his natural simplicity prevailed. He 
ran to Johnson, and exclaimed in *a kind of flutter,' n 
*^ Well, you acquitted yourself in this conversation better 
than I should have done, for I should have bowed and 3 
stammered through the whole of it." 

The years 1768 and 1769 were a period of great excite-' 
ment for Bos well. He was carrying on various love' 
affairs, which ended with his marriage in the end of 1769.;; 
He was publishing his book upon Corsica and paying! 
homage to Paoli, who arrived in England in the autumn; 
of the same year. The book appeared in the beginning oi^' 
1768, and he begs his friend Temple to report all that is;i 
said about it, but with the restriction that he is to conceal! 
all censure. He particularly wanted Gray's opinion, as Gray': 
was a friend of Temple's. Gray's opinion, not conveyed] 
to Boswell, was expressed by his calling it *^a dialogue 
between a green goose and a hero." Boswell, who was culti-i 
vating the society of various eminent people, exclaims 
triumphantly in a letter to Temple (April 26, 1768), " I amj 
really the great man now." Johnson and Hume had called ■ 
upon him on the same day, and Garrick, Franklin, and Ogle- 
thorpe also partook of his " admirable dinners and good 
claret." " This," he says, with the sense that he deserved' 
his honours, " is enjoying the fruit of my labours, and 
appearing like the friend of Paoli." Jolinson in vain 
expressed a wish that he would "empty his head of 



! 



iv.] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 105 

j 

Corsica, which had filled it too long." " Empty my head 
bf Corsica ! Empty it of honour, empty it of» friendship, 
itempty it of piety !" exclaims the ardent youth. The next 
ijyear accordingly saw Boswell's appearance at the Stratford 
ilJubilee, where he paraded to the admiration of all beholders 
jin a costume described by himself (apparently) in a glow- 
jing article in the London Magazine, " Is it wrong, sir," 
he took speedy opportunity of inquiring from the oracle, 
"to affect singularity in order to make people stare?" 
" Yes," replied Johnson, " if you do it by propagating 
error, and indeed it is wrong in any way. There is in 
human nature a general inclination to make people stare, 
and every wise man has himself to cure of it, and does 
cure himself. If you wish to make people stare by doing 
better than others, why make them stare tiU they stare 
their eyes out. But consider how easy it is to make 
people stare by being absurd " — a proposition which he 
proceeds to illustrate by examples perhaps less telling than 
Bosweirs recent performance. 

The sage was less communicative on the question of 
marriage, though Boswell had anticipated some " instruc- 
tive conversation " upon that topic. His sole remark was 
I one from which BosweU "humbly differed." Johnson 
I maintained that a wife was not the worse for being 
I learned. Boswell, on the other hand, defined the proper 
j degree of intelligence to be desired in a female companion 
i by some verses in which Sir Thomas Overbury says that 
^' a wife should have some knowledge, and be " by nature 
. wise, not learned much by art." Johnson said afterwards 
that Mrs. Boswell was in a proper degree inferior to her 
. husband. So far as we can tell, she seems to have 
been a reaUy sensible and good woman, who kept hei 
husband's absurdities in check, and was, in her way, 



lOG SAMUEL JOHNSON. [char' 

a better ^vi{e than he deserved. So, happily, are most 
T/ives. ! 

Johnson and Boswell had several meetings in 1769.' 
Boswell had the honour of introducing the two ob-^, 
jects of his idolatry, Johnson and Paoli, and on another 
occasion entertained a party including Goldsmith and' 
Garrick and Reynolds, at his lodgings in Old Bond Street. 
We can still see the meeting more distinctly than many^ 
thai have been swallowed by a few days of oblivion. They 
Avaited for one of the party, Johnson kindly maintaining 
that six ought to be kept waiting for one, if the one 
v/ould suffer more by the others sitting dow^n than the 
six by waiting. Meanw^hile Garrick *• played round 
Johnson with a fond vivacity, taking hold of the 
breasts of his coat, looking up in his face with a lively 
archness," and complimenting him on his good health.! 
Goldsmith strutted about bragging of his dress, of w^hich' 
Bos\vell, in the serene consciousness of superiority to such 
w^eakness, thought him seriously vain. "Let me telL 
you,'' said Goldsmith, "wdien my tailor brought home my; 
bloom-coloured coat, he said, * Sir, I have a favour to 
beg of you ; when anybody asks you who made your ' 
clothes, be pleased to mention John Filby, at the Harrow, 
Water Lane.' " " Why, sir," said Johnson, " that w^as 
because he knew that the strange colour would attract 
crowds to gaze at it, and thus they might hear of him, and 
see how well he could make a coat even of so absurd a 
colour." Mr. Filby has gone the way of all tailors and 
bloom coloured coats, but some of his bills are preserved. , 
On the day of this dinner he had delivered to Goldsmith ^ 
a half-dress suit of ratteen lined with satin, costing 
twelve guineas, a pair of silk stocking-breeches for £2 5s, 
and a pair of bloom-coloured ditto for XI is. Qd. The 



i? f:] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOE. 107 

pill, including other items, was paid, it is satisfactory to 
Idd, in February, 1771. 

The conversation was chiefly literary. Johnson re- 

^peated the concluding lines of the Dunciad ; upon which 

iiome one (probably Boswell) ventured to say that they were 

1^ too fine for such a poem — a poem on what *? " " Why," 

^^id Johnson, " on dunces ! It was worth while being 

f dunce then. Ah, sir, hadst thou lived in those days ! " 

Johnson previously uttered a criticism which has led 

some people to think that he had a touch of the dunce 

in him. He declared that a description of a temple in 

Congreve's Mourning Bride was the finest he knew — 

■'finer than anything in Shakspeare. Garrick vainly 

i protested; but Johnson was inexorable. He compared 

■ Congreve to a man who had only ten guineas in the world, 

but all in one coin ; whereas Shakspeare might have ten 

thousand separate guineas. The principle of the criticism 

is rather curious. " What I mean is," said Johnson, ^^ that 

you can show me no passage where there is simply a 

description of material objects, without any admixture 

of moral notions, which produces such an efi"ect." The 

description of the night before Agincourt was rejected 

because there were men in it ; and the description of 

I Dover Cliff because the boats and the crows '' impede yon 

j fall." They do "nol impress your mind at once with 

[ the horrible idea of immense height. The impression is 

f divided ; you pass on by computation from one stage of 

the tremendous space to another." 

Probably most people will think that the passage in 
question deserves a very slight fraction of the praise be- 
stowed upon it ; but the criticism, like most of Johnson's, 
has a meaning which might be worth examining ab- 
stractedly from the special application which shocks tlip 
H 



5 
d 



108 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chaF. 

idolaters of Shakspeare. Presently the party discussed 
;Mrs. Montagu, whose Essay upon Shakspeare had madsllii^ 
some noise. Johnson had a respect for her, caused in: d 
great measure by a sense of her liberality to his friend Miss 
"Williams, of whom more must be said hereafter. He 
paid her some tremendous compliments, observing tbatu 
some China plates which had belonged to Queen Elizabeth 
and to her, had no reason to be ashamed of a possessor softi 
little inferior to the first. But he had his usual profes-^ 
sional contempt for her amateur performances in literature. ^ 
Her defence of Shakspeare against Yoltaire did her honour, 
he admitted, but it would do nobody else honour. " K'OylJle 
sir, there is no real criticism in it : none showing the 
beauty of thought, as formed on the workings of the human 
heart." ]\Irs. Montagu was reported once to have com-tb 
plimented a modern tragedian, probably Jephson, by say-il 
ing, "I tremble for Shakspeare." "When Shakspeare," said ^i 



Johnson, "has got Jephson for his rival and Mrs. Montagu >' 
for his defender, he is in a poor state indeed." The conver- j 
sation w^ent on to a recently publislied book, Karnes's ' 
Elements of Criticism, which Johnson praised, whilst Gold- i 
smith said more truly, "It is easier to write that book than 
to read it." Johnson went on to speak of other critics. ] 
" There is no great merit," he said, " in telling how many 
plays have ghosts in them, and how this ghost is better 
than that. You must show how terror is impressed on the J- 
human heart. In the description of night in Macleth the | 
beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of dark- j 
ness— inspissated gloom." % 

After Boswell's marriage he disappeared for some 
time from London, and his correspondence with Johnson 
dropped, as he says, without coldness, from pure procras- 
vination. He did not leturn to London till 1772, In the 



\ 



iv.] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 109 

MJsprmg of that and tlie following year he renewed his old 
Is&abits of intimacy, and inquired into Johnson's opinion upon 
fiiijvarious subjects ranging from ghosts to literary criticism. 
The height to which he had risen in the doctor's good 
^iopinion was marked by several symptoms. He was asked 
l| to dine at Johnson's house upon Easter day, 1773; and 
observes that his curiosity was as much gratified as by a 
(^previous dinner with Eousseau in the " wilds of l!^euf- 
■kchatel." He was now able to report, to the amazement of 
Imany inquirers, that Johnson's establishment was quite 
I orderly. The meal consisted of very good soup, a boiled 
leg of lamb with spinach, a veal pie, and a rice pudding. 
I A stronger testim_ony of good- will was his election, by 
i^Johnson's influence, into the Club. It ought apparently 
to be said that Johnson forced him upon the Club by 
Mting it be understood that, till Boswell was admitted, 
\\ no other candidate would have a chance. Boswell, how- 
ever, was, as his proposer said, a thoroughly " clubable '* 
man, and once a member, his good humour secured his 
popularity. On the important evening Boswell dined at 
Beauclerk's with his proposer and some other members. 
/ The talk turned upon Goldsmith's merits ; and Johnson 
|*-]iot only defended his poetry, but preferred him as a his- 
I torian to Eobertson. Such a judgment could be explained 
K in Boswell's opinion by nothing but Johnson's dislike to 
ly the Scotch. Once before, when Boswell had mentioned 
1 ipobertson in order to meet Johnson's condemnation of 
'Scotch literature in general, Johnson had evaded him; 
'Sir, I love Eobertson, and I won't talk of his book." On 
the present occasion he said that he would give to Eobert- 
^son the advice offered by an old college tutor to a pupil ; 
^ *^ read over your compositions, and whenever you meet with 
i a passage which you think particularly fine, strike it outt^' 



no S.^MUEL JOHNSON. [chaI, 






A good anecdote of Goldsmith followed. Johnson ha? 
sail to him once in the Poet's Corner at Westminster, — ^¥ 



DP 



i 



ri 



Forsitau et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis. 

When they got to Temple Bar Goldsmith pointed to tli{ 
heads of the Jacohites upon it and slily suggested, — 

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis, 

ii 
Johnson next pronounced a critical judgment which shoul(?' wi 
be set against many sins of that kind. He praised tht'i 
Pilgrim's Progress Yeij warmly, and suggested that Bunya|) 
had probably read Spenser. o 

After more talk the gentlemen went to the Club ; an(f 
poor Boswell remained trembling with an anxiety whic\ 
even the charms of Lady Di Beauclerk's conversation coulqs 
not dissipate. The welcome news of his election wai 
brought ; and Boswell went to see Burke for the first timej 
and to receive a humorous charge from Johnson, pointing 
out the conduct expected from him as a good member] 
Perhaps some hints were given as to betrayal of confidencel-L 
Boswell seems at any rate to have had a certain reserve ll 
repeating Club talk. ! 

This intimacy with Johnson was ahout to receive a mor^ 
public and even more impressive stamp. The antipathy! 
to Scotland and the Scotch already noticed was one oJ 
Johnson's most notorious crotchets. The origin of the pr 
juJice was forgotten by Johnson himself, though he wa^' 
willing to accept a theory started by old Sheridan that i! 
was resentment for the betrayal of Charles I. There is, 
however, nothing surprising in Johnson's partaking a pre-i 
judice common enough from the days of his youth, when 
jach people supposed itself to have been cheated by th^ 



4k] JOHNSON AS A LITERAKY DlCTAfOIl. IH 

ijlLrnion, and Englishmen resented the advent of swarms of 
-kieedy adventurers, talking with a strange accent and hang- 
ing together with honourable but vexatious persistence. 
[Tohnson was irritated by what was, after all, a natural de- 
ijfence against English prejudice. He declared that the 
'ilScotch were always ready to lie on each other's behalf, 
t* The Irish," he said, '* are not in a conspiracy to cheat the 
Kvorld by false representations of the merits of their country- 
fmen. Wo, sir, the Irish are a fair people j they never speak 
|)|well of one another." There was another difference. He 
fill always expressed a generous resentment against the tyranny 
exercised by English rulers over the Irish people. To some 
one who defended the restriction of Irish trade for the 
good of English merchants, he said, *^ Sir, you talk the 
^ mguage of a savage. What ! sir, would you prevent any 
j people from feeding themselves, if by any honest means 
they can do it ] " It was " better to hang or drown people 
at once,*' than weaken them by unrelenting persecution. 
He felt some tenderness for Catholics, especially when 
oppressed, and a hearty antipathy towards prosperous Pres 
byterians. The Lowland Scotch were typified by John 

fKnox, in regard to whom he expressed a hope, after view- 
ing the ruins of St. Andrew's, that he was buried " in the 
highway." 

This sturdy British and High Church prejudice did not 
./ prevent the worthy doctor from having many warm friend- 
^ ships with Scotchmen, and helping many distressed Scotch- 
men in London. Most of the amanuenses employed for 
^his Dictionary were Scotch. But he nourished the pre- 
^ judice the more as giving an excellent pretext for many 
I keen gibes. "Scotch learning," he said, for example, "is 
like bread in a besieged town. Every man gets a mouth- 
ful, but no man a bellyful.*' Once Strahan said in aD- 



112 SAMUEL JOHNSON. \:cua.v? 

i 
gwer to some abusive remarks, "Well, sir, God madfl 

Scotland." " Certainly," replied Johnson, " but we mubZ 
always remember that He made it for Scotchmen ; andt 
comparisons are odious, Mr. Strahan, but God made hell/T^' 
Boswell, therefore, had reason to feel both triumph and 
alarm when he induced the great man to accompany himi 
in a Scotch tour. Eos well's journal of the tour appeared- 
soon after Johnson's death. Johnson himself wrote an 
account of it, wliich is not without interest, though it is' 
in his dignified style, which does not condescend to Bos-i 
wellian touches of character. In 1773 the Scotch High-i 
lands were still a little known region, justifying a book' 
descriptive of manners and customs, and touching upon, 
antiquities now the commonplaces of innumerable guide | 
books. Scott w^as still an infant, and the day of enthuCi 
siasm, real or affected, for mountain scenery had not yet* 
dawned. ]N"either of the travellers, as Boswell remarks, 1 
cared much for "rural beauties." Johnson says quaintly | 
on the shores of Loch J^ess, " It will very readily occur | 
that this uniformity of barrenness can afford very little I 
amusement to the traveller ; that it is easy to sit at home ii 
and conceive rocks and heath and waterfalls ; and that J ' 
these journeys are useless labours, which neither impreg- " 
nate the imagination nor enlarge the understanding." And 
though he shortly afterwards sits down on a bank " such 
as a writer of romance might have delighted to feign," and ' 
there conceived the thought of his book, he does not seem ^ 
to have felt much enthusiasm. He checked Boswell fori 
describing a hill as " immense," and told him that it wa8' 
only a "considerable protuberance." Indeed it is not 
surprising if he sometimes grew weary in long rides upon 
Highland ponies, or if, when weatherbound in a remote vil- 
lage in Skye, he declared that this was a " waste of life," 



tv.] JOHKSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 113 

On the whole, however, Johnson bore his fatigues well, 
>l| preserved his temper, and made sensible remarks upon 
men and things. The pair started from Edinburgh in 
the middle of August, 1773 ; they went north along the 
eastern coast, through St. Andrew's, Aberdeen, BanfiP, 
Fort George, and Inverness. There they took to horses, 
rode to Glenelg, and took boat for Skye, where they landed 
on the 2nd of September. They visited Eothsay, Col, 
Mull, and lona, and after some dangerous sailing got to 
the mainland at Oban on October 2nd. Thence they pro- 
ceeded by Inverary and Loch Lomond to Glasgow ; and 
after paying a visit to Bos well's paternal mansion at 
Auchinleck in Ayrshire, returned to Edinburgh in Novem- 
ber. It were too long to narrate their adventures at 
length, or to describe in detail how Johnson grieved over 
traces of the iconoclastic zeal of Knox's disciples, seri- 
ously investigated stories of second-sight, cross-esamined 
and brow-beat credulous believers in the authenticity of 
Ossian, and felt his piety grow warm among the ruins 
of lona. Once or twice, when the temper of the travellers 
was tried by the various worries incident to their position, 
poor Boswell came in for some severe blows. But he 
was happy, feeling, as he remarks, like a dog who has run 
away with a large piece of meat, and is devouring it 
peacefully in a corner by himself Boswell's spirits were 
irrepressible. On hearing a drum beat for dinner at 
Eort George, he says, with a Pepys-like touch, '^ I for a 
little while fancied myself a military man, and it pleased 
me." He got scandalously drunk on one occasion, and 
showed reprehensible levity on others. He bored Johnson 
by inquiring too curiously into his reasons for not wear- 
ing a nightcap — a subject which seems to have interested 
him profoundly ; he permitted himself to say in his 

6 



1 1 4 SAMUEL JOHN SON. [chap. 

journal that he was so much pleased with some pretty 
ladies' maids at the Duke of Argyll's, that he felt he could 
"have heen a knight-errant for them," and his "venerahle 
fellow-traveller " read the passage without censuring his 
levity. The great ilian himself could be equally volatile. 
** I have often thought, ^^ he observed one day, to Bos well's 
amusement, " that if I kept a seraglio, the ladies should 
all wear linen gowns " — as more cleanly. The pair agreed 
in trying to stimulate the feudal zeal of various Highland 
chiefs with whom they came in contact, and who were 
unreasonable enough to show a hankering after the luxuries 
of civilization. 

Though Johnson seems to have been generally on his 
best behaviour, he had a rough encounter or two with 
some of the more civilized natives. Boswell piloted him 
safely through a visit to Lord Monboddo, a man of real 
ability, though the proprietor of crochets as eccentric as 
Johnson's, and consequently divided from him by strong 
mutual prejudices. At Auchinleck he was less fortunate. 
The old laird, who was the staunchest of Whigs, had not 
relished his son's hero worship. *' There is nae hope for 
Jamie, mon ; Jamie is gaen clean gyte. What do you 
think, mon ? He's done wi' Paoli — he's off wi' the land- 
louping scoundrel of a Corsican, and who's tail do you 
think he's pinned himself to now, mon?" " Here," says 
Sir Walter Scott, the authority for the story, " the old 
judge summoned up a sneer of most sovereign contempt. 
* A dominie, mon — an auld dominie — ^he keeped a schule 
and caauld it an acaademy.'" The two managed to 
keep the peace till, one day during Johnson's visit, 
they got upon Oliver Cromwell. Boswell suppiesses 
the scene with obvious reluctance, his openness being 
checked ibr once by filial respect. Scott has fortn- 



IV.] JOHKSON AS A LITERACY DICTATOH. 115 

nately preserved the climax of Old Bos well's argument. 

" What had Cromwell done for his country ] " asked 

I Johnson. " God, doctor, he gart Kings ken that they 

I had a lith in their necks" retorted the laird, in a 

I phrase worthy of Mr. Carlyle himself. Scott reports one 

' other scene, at which respectable commentators, like 

I Croker, hold up their hands in horror. Should we regret 

or rejoice to say that it involves an obvious inaccuracy 1 

} The authority, however, is too good to allow us to suppose 

that it was without some foundation. Adam Smith, it is 

said, met Johnson at Glasgow and had an altercation with 

! him about the well-known account of Hume's death. As 

Hume did not die till three years later, there must be 

some error in this. The dispute, however, whatever its 

date or subject, ended by Johnson saying to Smith, " You 

Her " And what did you reply % " was asked of Smith. 

I " I said, ' you are a son of a ." " On such terms," 

' says Scott, " did these two great moralists meet and part, 
ar.d such was the classical dialogue between these two 
great teachers of morality." 
V In the year 1774 Boswell found it expedient to atone 
J,, for his long absence in the previous year by staying at 
home. Johnson managed to complete his account of the 
Scotch Tour, which was published at the end of the year. 
Among other consequences was a violent controversy 
with the lovers of Os&ian, Johnson was a thorough scep- 
tic as to the authenticity of the book. His scepticism 
did not repose upon the philological or antiquarian reason- 
- ings, which would be applicable in the controversy from 
internal evidence. It was to some extent the expression of 
* a general incredulity which astonished his friends, espe- 
cially when contrasted with his tenderness for many puerile 
superstitions . He could scarcely be induced to admit the 



116 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cha?. 

truth of any narrative which struck him as odd, and it 
was long, for example, before he would believe even in the 
Lisbon earthquake. Yet he seriously discussed the truth 
of second -sight ; he carefully investigated the Cock-lane 
ghost — a goblin who anticipated some of the modern phe- 
nomena of so-called " spiritualism," and w^ith almost equal 
absurdity ; he told stories to Bos well about a " shadowy 
being " which had once been seen by Cave, and declared 
that he had once heard his mother call '^ Sam " when he 
was at Oxford and she at Lichfield. The apparent incon- 
sistency was in truth natural enough. Any man who 
clings with unreasonable pertinacity to the prejudices of 
his childhood, must be alternately credulous and sceptical 
in excess. In both cases, he judges by his fancies in de- 
fiance of evidence ; and accepts and rejects according to 
his likes and dislikes, instead of his estimates of logical 
proof. Ossian would be naturally offensive to Johnson, 
as one of the earliest and most remarkable manifestations 
of that growing taste for what was called "Mature," as 
opposed to civilization, of which Rousseau was the great 
mouthpiece. jSTobody more heartily despised this form of 
"cant*^ than Johnson. A man who utterly despised the 
scenery of the Hebrides as compared with Greenwich 
Park or Charing Cross, would hardly take kindly to the 
Ossianesque version of the mountain passion. The book 
struck him as sheer rubbish. I have already quoted 
the retort about "many men, many women, and many 
children." "A man,*' he said, on another occasion, 
** might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his 
mind to it." 

The precise point, however, upon which he rested his 
case, was the tangible one of the inability of Macpherson 
to produce the manuscripts of which he had affirmed the 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITEEAKY DICTATOR. 117 

existence. Macplierson wrote a furious letter to Johnson^ 
of which the purport can only be inferred from Johnson's 
smashing retort, — 

" Mr. James MacPherson, I have received your foolish 
and impudent letter. Any violence offered me I shall do 
my best to repel ; and what I cannot do for myself, the 
law shall do for me. I hope I shall never be deterred 
from detecting what I think a cheat by the menaces of 
a ruffian. 

"What would you have me retract*? I thought your 
book an imposture : I think it an imposture still. For 
this opinion I have given my reasons to the public, which 
I here dare you to refute. Your rage I defy. Your 
abilities, since your Homer, are not so formidable ; and 
what I hear of your morals inclines me to pay regard not 
to what you shall say, but to what you shall prove. 
You may print this if you will. 

" Sam. Johnson." 

And so laying in a tremendous cudgel, the old gentle- 
man (he was now sixty-six) awaited the assault, which, 
however, was not delivered. 

In 1775 Boswell again came to London, and renewed 
some of the Scotch discussions. He attended a meeting 
of the Literary Club, and found the members disposed 
to laugh at Johnson's tenderness to the stories about 
second-sight. Boswell heroically avowed his own belief. 
" The evidence," he said, " is enough for me, though not 
for his great mind. Wliat will not till a quart bottle, will 
fiU a pint bottle. I am filled with belief." '' Are you ?" 
said Colman ; " then cork it up." 

It was during this and the next few years that Boswell 
laboured most successfully in gathering materials for^hia 
book. In 1777 he only met Jolmson in the country. In 



118 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

1773, for some unexplained reason, he was lazy in making 
notes; in 1780 and 1781 he was ahsent from London; 
and in the following year, Johnson was visibly declining. 
The tenour of Johnson's life was interrupted during this 
period by no remarkable incidents, and his literary 
activity was not great, although the composition of the 
Lives of the Poets falls between 1777 and 1780. His 
mind, however, as represented by his talk, was im full 
vigour. I will take in order of time a few of the passages 
recorded by Boswell, which may serve for various reasons 
to afford the best illustration of his character. Yet it 
may be worth while once more to repeat the warning 
that such fragments moved from their context must lose 
most of their charm. 

On March 26th (1775), BosweU met Johnson at the 
house of the publisher, Strahan. Strahan reminded John- 
son of a characteristic remark which he had formerly made, 
that there are " few ways in which a man can be more 
innocently employed than in getting money." On another 
occasion Johnson observed with equal truth, if less 
originality, that cultivating kindness was an important 
part of life, as well as money-making. Johnson then 
asked to see a country lad whom he had recommended to 
Strahan as an apprentice. He asked for five guineas on 
account, that he might give one to the boy. " ^ay, if a 
man recommends a boy and does nothing for him, it is 
sad work." A " little, thick short^legged boy " was accord- 
ingly brought into the courtyard, whither Johnson and 
Boswell descended, and the lexicographer bending him- 
self down administered some good advice to the awe- 
struck lad wi^h '* slow and sonorous solemnity," ending by 
the presentation of the guinea. 

In the evening the pair formed part of a corps of party 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 119 

" wits," bd by Sir Joshua Eeynolds, to the benefit of Mrs. 
Abington, who had been a frequent model of the painter. 
Johnson praised Garrick's prologues, and Bos well kindly 
reported the eulogy to Garrick, with whom he supped at 
Beauclerk's. Garrick treated him to a mimicry of 
Johnson, repeating, " with pauses and half-whistling," the 

lines, — 

« 

Os homini sublime dedit— coeliiinqTie tneri 

Jussit — efc erectos ad sidera tollere vultus : 

looking downwards, and at the end touching the ground 
with a contorted gesticulation. . Garrick was generally 
jealous of Johnson's light opinion of him, and used to 
take off his old master, saying, " Davy has some convivial 
pleasantry about him, but 'tis a futile fellow." 

]S"ext day, at Thrales', Johnson fell foul of Gray, one 
of his pet aversions. Boswell denied that Gray was dull 
in poetry. '^ Sir," replied Johnson, " he was dull in 
company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was 
dull in a new way, and that made people think him 
great. He was a mechanical poet." He proceeded to say 
that there were only two good stanzas in the Elegy. 
Johnson's criticism was perverse ; but if we were to 
collect a fcAv of the judgments passed by contemporaries 
upon each other, it would be scarcely exceptional in its 
want of appreciation. It is rather odd to remark that 
Gray was generally condemned for obscurity — a charge 
which seems strangely out of place when he is measured by 
more recent standards. 

A day or two afterwards some one rallied Johnson on 
his appearance at Mrs. Abington's benefit. *MVhy did 
you go*?" he asked. ''Did you see?" "Ko, sir." 
** Did you hear 1 " " JSTo, sir." " Why, then, sir, did you 



120 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

go ? " " Because, sir, she is a favourite of the public ; 
and when the public cares the thousandth part for you 
that it does for hex, I will go to your benefit too." 

The day after, Boswell won a bet from Lady Di 
Beauclerk by venturing to ask Johnson what he did with 
the orange-peel which he used to pocket. Johnson 
received the question amicably, but did not clear the 
mystery, "Then," said Boswell, "the world must be 
left in the dark. It must be said, he scraped them, 
and he let them dry, but what he did with them next he 
never could be prevailed upon to tell." "^ay, sir," 
replied Johnson, " you should say it more emphatically — 
he could not be prevailed upon, even by his dearest 
friends to tell." 

This year Johnson received the degree of LL.D. from 
Oxford. He had previously (in 1765) received the same 
honour from Dublin. It is remarkable, however, that 
famili.'ir as the title has become, Johnson called himself 
plain Mr. to the end of his days, and was generally so 
called by his intimates. On April 2nd, at a dinner at 
Hoole's, Johnson made another assault upon Gray and 
]\Iason. When BosweU said that there were good passages 
in Mason's Elfrida, he conceded that there were " now and 
then some good imitations of Milton's bad manner." After 
some more talk, Boswell spoke of the cheerfulness of Fleet 
Street. "Why, sir," said Johnson, " Fleet Street has a 
very animated appearance, but I think that the full tide 
of human existence is at Charing Cross." He added a 
story of an eminent tallow-chandler who had made a for- 
tune in London, and was foolish enough to retire to the 
country. He grew so tired of his retreat, that he begged 
to know the melting, days of his successor, that he might 
be present at the operation. 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITEEARY DICTATOE. 1'21 

On April 7tli, tliey dined at a tavern, where the talk 
turned upon Ossian, Some one mentioned as an objec- 
tion to its authenticity that no mention of wolves occurred 
in it. Johnson fell into a reverie upon wild beasts, and, 
whilst Reynolds and Langton were discussing something, 
he broke out, " Pennant tells of bears." What Pennant 
told is unknown. The company continued to talk, whilst 
Johnson continued his monologue, the word '^bear" 
occurring at intervals, like a word in a catch. At last, 
when a pause came, he was going on ; " We are told that 
the black bear is innocent, but I should not like to trust 
myself with him." Gibbon muttered in a low tone, 
*^ I should not like to trust myself with you'' — a prudent 
resolution, says honest Bos well who hated Gibbon, if it 
referred to a competition of abilities. 

The talk went on to patriotism, and Johnson laid 
down an apophthegm, at ^' which many will start," many 
people, in fact, having liUle sense of humour. Such per- 
sons may be reminded for their comfort that at this period 
patriot had a technical meaning. " Patriotism is the last 
refuge of a scoundrel." On the 1 0th of April, he laid down 
another dogma, calculated to offend the weaker brethren. 
He defended Poue's line ~ 

Man never is but always to he blest. 

And being asked if man did not sometimes enjoy a mo- 
mentary happiness, replied, ''Never, but when he is 
drunk." It woidd be useless to defend these and other 
such utterances to any one who cannot enjoy them with- 
out defence. 

On April 11th, the pair went in Eeynolds's coach to 
dine with Cambridge, at Twickenham. Johnson was in 
high spirits. He remarked as they drove down, upon the 



122 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap 

rarity of good humour in life. One friend mentioned by 
Boswell was, be said, acid^ and anotber muddy. At last, 
Btretcbing biniself and turning witb complacency, be 
observed, '' I look upon myself as a good-bumoured fel- 
low " — a bit of self-esteem against wbicb Boswell pro- 
tested. Jobnson, be admitted, was good-natured ; but was 
too irascible and impatient to be good-bumoured. On 
reaching Cambridge's bouse, Jobnson ran to look at tbe 
books. " Mr. Jobnson," said Cambridge politely, " I 
am going witb your pardon to accuse myself, for I bave 
tbe same custom wbicb I perceive you bave. But it 
seems odd tbat one should bave such a desire to look at 
tbe backs of books." ^^ Sir," replied Jobnson, wheeling 
about at the words, " tbe reason is very plain. Know 
ledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or 
we know where we can find information upon it. When 
we inquire into any subject, tbe first thing we have to do 
is to know what books bave treated of it. This leads us 
to look at catalogues, and tbe backs of books in libraries." 

A pleasant talk followed. Johnson denied tbe value 
attributed to historical reading, on tbe ground that we 
know very little except a few facts and dates. All the 
colouring, he said, was conjectural. Boswell chuckles 
over tbe reflection that Gibbon, who was present, did not 
take up tbe cudgels for his favourite study, though the first- 
fruits of bis labours were to appear in tbe following year. 
" Probably be did not like to trust himself with Johnson" 

The conversation presently turned upon tbe Beggar^s 
Opera, and Johnson sensibly refused to believe that any 
man had been made a rogue by seeing it. Yet the moralist 
felt bound to utter some condemnation of such a perform- 
ance, and at last, amidst the smothered amusement of 
the company, collected himself to give a heavy stroke : 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 123 

"there is in it," he said, "such a lahefadation of all 

I principles as may be dangerous to morality." 

f A discussion followed as to whether Sheridan was right 

I for refusing to allow his wife to continue as a public 

!i singer. Johnson defended him " with all the high spirit 

I' of aEoman senator." " He resolved wisely and nobly, to 

i be sure. He is a brave man. Would not a gentleman 

be disgraced by having his wife sing publicly for hire 1 

No, sir, there can be no doubt here. I know not if I 

should not prepare myself for a public singer as readily as 

let my wife be one." 

The stout old supporter of social authority w^ent on to 
denounce the politics of the day. He asserted that 
politics had come to mean nothing but the art of rising 
in the world. He contrasted the absence of any prin- 
ciples with the state of the national mind during the stormy 
days of the seventeenth century. This gives the pith 
of Johnston's political prejudices. He hated Whigs 
blindly from his cradle ; but he justified his hatred on the 
ground that they were now all "bottomless Whigs," 
that is to say, that pierce where you would, you came 
upon no definite creed, but only upon hollow formulae, 
intended as a cloak for private interest. If Burke and one 
or tw^o of his friends be excepted, the remark had but too 
much justice. 

In 1776, Eos well found Johnson rejoicing in the pro- 
spect of a journey to Italy with the Thrales. Before 
starting he was to take a trip to the country, in which 
Boswell agreed to join. Boswell gathered up various 
bits of advice before their departure. One seems to have 
commended itself to him as specially available for prac- 
tice " A man who had been drinking freely," said tlje 
moralist, "should never go into a new company. Ho 
I 



'i 



124 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

would probably strike them as ridiculous^ though he 
might be in unison with those who had been drinking 
Avith him." Johnson propounded another favourite theory. 
"A ship," he said, ''was worse than a gaol. There is in 
a gaol better air, better company, better conveniency o: 
every kind; and a ship has the additional disadvantage^ 
of being in danger." 

On March 19th, they went by coach to the Angel at, 
Oxford; and next morning visited the Master of Uni-j 
versity College, who chose with Boswell to act in oppo-j 
sition to a very sound bit of advice given by Johnsoii i 
soon afterwards — perhaps with some reference to the pro- i 
ceeding. '' iN'ever speak of a man in his own presence ; it 
is always indelicate and may be offensive." The two, how-j 
ever, discussed Johnson without reserve. The Master said 
that he would have given Johnson a hundred pounds for a 
discourse on the Eiitish Constitution ; and Boswell sug- 
gested that Johnson should write two volumes of no| 
great bulk upon Church and State, which should comprise 
the whole substance of the argument. '' He should erect j 
a fort on the confines of each." Johnson was not unna-! 
turally displeased with the dialogue, and growled out, i 
" Why should I be always writing ? " 

Presently, they went to see Dr. Adams, the doctor's i 
old friend, who had been answering Hume. Boswell, who I 
had done his best to court the acquaintance of Voltaire, 
Eousseau, Wilkes, and Hume himself, felt it desirable to 
reprove Adams for having met Hume witli civility. Hej 
aired his admirable sentiments in along speech, observing 
upon the connexion between theory and practice, and re- ' 
marking, by way of practical application, that, if an infidel 
were at once vain and ugly, he might be compared to 
" Cicero's beautiful image of Viitue" — which would, as he 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITEEAEY DICTATOR. 125 

ssems to think, be a crushing retort. Bos well always 
delighted in fighting with his gigantic backer close behind 
him. Johnson, as he had doubtless expected, chimed in 
with the argument. " You should do your best," said 
Johnson, " to diminish the authority, as well as dispute the 
arguments of your adversary, because most people are 
biased more by personal respect than by reasoning." "You 
would not jostle a chimney-sweeper," said Adams. "Yes," 
replied Johnson, " if it were necessary to jostle him 
down." 

The pair proceeded by post-chaise past Blenheim, and 
dined at a good inn at Chapelhouse. Johnston boasted 
of the superiority, long since vanished if it ever existed, 
of English to French inns, and quoted with great emo- 
tion Shenstone's lines — • 

Whoe'er has travell'd life'?? dull round, 

Where'er his stages may have been, 
Must sigh to think he still has found 

The warmest welcome at an inn. 

As they drove along rapidly in the post-chaise, he ex- 
claimed, "Life has not many better things than this." 
On another occasion he said that he should like to spend 
his life driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty 
woman, clever enough to add to the conversation. The 
pleasure was partly owing to the fact that his deafness was 
less troublesome in a carriage. But he admitted that 
there were drawbacks even to this pleasure. Boswell 
asked him whether he w^ould not add a post-chaise journey 
to the other sole cause of happiness — namely, drunken- 
ness. " No, sir," said Johnson, " you are driving rapidly 
from something or to something." » 

They went to Birmingham, where Boswell pumped 



126 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cfap. 

Hector about Johnson's early days, and saw the works of 
Boulton, Watt's partner, who said to him, " I sell here, 
sir, what all the world desires to have — power ^ Thence 
they went to Lichfield, and met more of the rapidly 
thinning circle of Johnson's oldest friends. Here Bos well 
was a little scandalized by Johnson's warm exclamation 
on opening a letter — *^ One of the most dreadful things 
that has happened in my time ! " This turned out to be the 
death of Thrale's only son. Boswell thought the phrase 
too big for the event, and was some time before he could 
feel a proper concern. He was, however, "curious to 
observe how Dr. Johnson would be affected," and was again ; 
a little scandalized by the reply to his consolatory remark 
that the Thrales still had daughters. " Sir," said Johnson, 
*' don't you know how you yourself think? Sir, he 
wishes to propagate his name," The great man was 
actually putting the family sentiment of a brewer in the 
same category with the sentiments of the heir of Auchin- ' 
leek. Johnson, however, calmed down, but resolved to 
hurry back to London. They stayed a night at Taylor's, 
who remarked that he had fought a good many battles 
for a physician, one of their common friends. " But you 
should consider, sir," said Johnson, " that by every one 
of your victories he is a loser ; for every man of whom 
you get the better will be very angry, and resolve not to 
employ him, whereas if people get the better of you in 
argument about him, they will think * We'll send foi 

Dr. nevertheless !' " 

It was after their return to London that Boswell won 
the greatest triumph of his friendship. He carried through 
a negotiation, to which, as Burke pleasantly said, there 
was nothing equal in the whole history of the corps diplch 
iriatique. At some moment of enthusiasm it had occurred 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 127 

to him to bring Johnson into company with Wilkes. 
The infidel demagogue was probably in the mind of the 
Tory High Churchman, when he threw out that pleasant 
little apophthegm about patriotism. To bring together 
two such opposites without provoking a collision would 
be the crowning triumph of Bos well's curiosity. He was 
I'eady to run all hazards as a chemist might try some 
new experiment at the risk of a destructive explosion ; 
but being resolved, he took every precaution with ad- 
mirable foresight. 

Eoswell had been invited by the Dillys, well-known 
booksellers of the day, to meet Wilkes. " Let us have 
Johnson," suggested the gallant Bos well. " [N'ot for the 
world ! " exclaimed Dilly. But, on Boswell's undertaking 
the negotiation, he consented to the experiment. Boswell 
went off to Johnson and politely invited him in Dilly's 
name. " I will wait upon him," said Johnson. " Pro- 
vided, sir, I suppose," said the diplomatic Boswell, " that 
the company which he is to have is agreeable to you." 
"What do you mean, sir*?"' exclaimed Johnson. "What 
do you take' me for? Do you think I am so ignorant of 
the world as to prescribe to a gentleman what company 
he is to have at his table?" Boswell worked the point a 
little farther, till, by judicious manipulation, he had got 
Johnson to commit himself to meeting anybody ~ even 
Jack Wilkes, to make a wild hypothesis — at the Dillys' 
i table. Boswell retired, hoping to think that he had fixed 
I the discussion in Johnson's mind. 

I The great day arrived, and Boswell, like a consummate 
1 general who leaves nothing to chance, went himself to 
! fetch Johnson to the dinner. The great man had for- 
gotten the engagement, and was " buffeting his books " in 
a dirty shirt and amidst clouds of dust. When reminded 



128 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [ohap. 

of his promise, lie said that he had ordered dinner at 
home with Mrs. Williams. Entreaties of the warmest 
kind from Boswell softened the peevish old lady, to 
whose pleasure Johnson had referred him. Eoswell flew 
back, announced Mrs. Williams's consent, and Johnson ■ 
roared, ** Frank, a clean shirt !" and was soon in a hackney- 
coach. Boswell rejoiced like a '* fortune-hunter who has . 
got an heiress into a post-chaise with him to set out for 
Gretna Green." Yet the joy was with trembling. Arrived 
at Dillys', Johnson found himself amongst strangers, and ; 
Boswell watched anxiously from a corner. " Who is that | 
gentleman'?" whispered Johnson to Dilly. "Mr. Arthur 
Lee." Johnson whistled *' too-too-too " doubtfully, for , 
Lee was a patriot and an American. " And who is the | 
gentleman in lace?" "Mr. Wilkes, sir." Johnson sub-[ 
sided into a window-seat and fixed his eye on a book. ;; 
He was fairly in the toils. His reproof of Boswell was ; 
recent enough to prevent him from exhibiting his dis-i 
pleasure, and he resolved to restrain himself. 

At dinner Wilkes, placed next to Johnson, took up hisj 
part in the performance. He pacified the sturdy moralist r 
by delicate attentions to his needs. He helped him care- 
fully to some fine veal. " Pray give me leave, sir; it is, 
better here — a little of the brown — some fat, sir — a little 
of the stuffing — some gravy — let me have the pleasure of 
giving you some butter. Allow me to recommend a. 
squeeze of this orange ; or the lemon, perhaps, may have : 
more zest." " Sir, sir," cried Johnson, " I am obliged to 
you, sir," bowing and turning to him, with a look for 
some time of " surly virtue," and soon of complacency. 

Gradually the conversation became cordial. Johnson 
told of the fascination exercised by Foote, who, like 
Wilkes, had succeeded in pleasing him against hia wilL 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR, 129 

Foote once took to seUing beer, and it was so bad that 
the servants of Fitzherbert, one of his customers, resolved 
to protest. They chose a little black boy to carry their 
remonstrance ; but the boy waited at table one day when 
Foote was present, and returning to his companions, said^ 
" This is the finest man I have ever seen. I will not 
deliver your messa^^e; I will drink his beer." From 
Foote the transition was easy to Garrick, whom Johnson, 
as usual, defended against the attacks of others. He main- 
tained that Garrick's reputation for avarice, though un- 
founded, had been rather useful than otherwise. ''You 
despise a man for avarice, but you do not hate him." The 
clamour would have been m-ore effectual, had it been 
directed against his living with splendour too great for 
a player. Johnson went on to speak of the difficulty of 
getting biographical information. When he had wished 
to write a life of Dryden, he applied to two living men 
who remembered him. One could only tell him that 
Dryden had a chair by the fire at Will's Coffee-house in 
winter, which was moved .to the balcony in summer. The 
other (Gibber) could only report that he remembered 
Dryden as a " decent old man, arbiter of critical disputes 
at Wiirs." 

Johnson and Wilkes had one point in common — a 
vigorous prejudice against the Scotch, and upon this topic 
they cracked their jokes in friendly emulation. When 
they met upon a later occasion (1781), they still pursued 
this inexhaustible subject. Wilkes told how a privateer 
had completely plundered seven Scotch islands, and re- 
embarked with three and sixpence. Johnson now re- 
marked in answer to somebody who said '' Poor old Eng- 
land is lost ! " '* Sir, it is not so much to be lamented that 
old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it." 



130 SAMUEL JOHNSON* [chap. 

" You must know, sir," lie said to Wilkes, " that I lately 
took my friend Bos well and showed him genuine civilized 
life in an Englisli provincial town. I turned him loose at 
Lichfield, that he might see for once real civility, for you 
know he lives among savages in Scotland and among 
rakes in London." *' Except," said Wilkes, "when he is 
with grave, sober, decent people like you and me." " And ^ 
we ashamed of him," added Johnson, smiling. 

Boswell had to bear some jokes against himself and his i 
countrymen from the pair ; but he had triumphed, and ! 
rejoiced greatly when he went home with Johnson, and I 
heard the great man speak of his pleasant dinner to Mrs. ' 
Williams. Johnson seems to have been permanently 
reconciled to his foe. " Did we not hear so much said 
of Jack Wilkes," he remarked next year, "we should 
think more highly of his conversation. Jack has a great I 
variety of talk, Jack is a scholar, and Jack has the man- | 
ners of a gentleman. But, after hearing his name sounded 
from pole to pole as the phoenix of convivial felicity, we j 
are disappointed in his company. He has always been at i 
me, but I would do Jack a kindness rather than not. 
The contest is now over." 

In fact, Wilkes had ceased to play any part in public 
life. When Johnson met him next (in 1781) they joked 
about such dangerous topics as some of Wilkes's political 
performances. Johnson sent him a copy of the Lives, 
and they were seen conversing tete-a-tete in confidential 
whispers about George 11. and the King of Prussia. To 
Boswell's mind it suggested the happy days when the lion 
should lie down with the kid, or, as Dr. Barnard sug- 
gested, the goat. 

In the year 1777 Johnson began the Lives of the PoetA, 
VOL compliauce with a request from the booksellers, who 



IV.] JOHNSOI^ AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 131 

wished for prefaces to a large collection of English poetry. 
Johnson asked for this work the extremely modest sum 
of 200 guineas, when he might easily, according to 
Malone, have received 1000 or 1500. He did not 
meet Boswell till September, when they spent ten 
days together at Dr. Taylor's. The subject which spe- 
cially interested Boswell at this time was the fate of the 
unlucky Dr. Dodd, hanged for forgery in the previous 
June. Dodd seems to have been a worthless charlatan of 
the popular preacher variety. His crime would not in 
our days have been thought worthy of so severe a punish- 
ment; but his contemporaries were less shocked by the 
fact of death being inflicted for such a fault, than by the 
fact of its being inflicted on a clergyman. Johnson exerted 
himself to procure a remission of the sentence by writing 
various letters and petitions on Dodd's behalf. He seems 
to have been deeply moved by the man's appeal, and 
could " not bear the thought '' that any negligence of his 
should lead to the death of a fellow-creature ; but he said 
that if he had himself been in authority he would have 
signed the death-warrant, and for the man himself, he 
had as little respect as might be. He said, indeed, that 
Dodd was right in not joining in the " cant " about 
leaving a wretched world. " I^o, no," said the poor 
rogue, " it has been a very agreeable world to me." Dodd 
had allowed to pass for his own one of the papers com- 
posed for him by Johnson, and the Doctor was not quite 
pleased. When, however, Seward expressed a doubt as 
to Dodd's power of writing so forcibly, Johnson felt 
bound not to expose him, " Why should you think so '? 
Depend upon it, sir, when any man knows he is to be 
hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonder- 
fully." On another occasion, Johnson expressed a doubt 



132 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cfiAP. 

himself as to whether Dodd had really composed a certain . 

prayer on the night before his execution. " Sir, do you j 

think that a man the night before he is to be hanged cares | 

for the succession of the royal family 1 Though he may \ 

have composed this prayer then. A man who has been \ 

canting all his life may cant to the last ; and yet a man ; 

who has been refused a pardon after so much petitioning, ] 

would hardly be praying thus fervently for the king." > 

The last day at Taylor's was characteristic. Johnson \ 

was very cordial to his disciple, and Boswell fancied that | 

he could defend his master at " the point of his sword." I 

"My regard for you," said Johnson, "is greater almost | 

than I have words to express, but I do not choose to be 

always repeating it. Write it down in the first leaf of 

your pocket-book, and never doubt of it again." They | 

became sentimental, and talked of the misery of human i 

life. Boswell spoke of the pleasures of society. " Alas, 

sir," replied Johnson, like a true pessimist, "these are 

only struggles for happiness ! " He felt exhilarated, he 

said, when he first went to Eanelagh, but he changed to 

the mood of Xerxes weeping at the sight of his army. 

" It went to my heart to consider that there was not one 

in all that brilliant circle that was not afraid to go home 

and think ; but that the thoughts of each individual would 

be distressing when alone." Some years before he had 

gone with Boswell to the Pantheon and taken a more 

cheerful view. When Boswell doubted whether there 

were many happy people present, he said, " Yes, sir, there 

are many happy people here. There are many people 

here who are watching hundreds, and who think hundreds 

are watching them." The more permanent feeling was 

that which he expressed in the "serene autumn night" 

in Taylor's garden. He was willing, however, to talk 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITERAEY BiCTATOit. 133 



ii calmly about eternal punishment, and to admit the possi- 

Ij bility of a *' mitigated interpretation." 

I After supper he dictated to Boswell an argument in 

'j favour of the negro who was then claiming his liberty in 

|| Scotland. He hated slavery with a zeal which the excel- 

\ lent Boswell thought to be " without knowledge ;" and on 

one occasion gave as a toast to some " very grave men " 

I at Oxford, " Here's to the next insurrection of negroes in 

I the West Indies." The hatred was combined with as 

I hearty a dislike for American independence. " How is 

' it," he said, ^^ that we always hear the loudest yelps for 

liberty amongst the drivers of negroes ? " The harmony 

of the evening was unluckily spoilt by an explosion of 

i this prejudice. Boswell undertook the defence of the 

colonists, and the discussion became so fierce that though 

Johnson had expressed a willingness to sit up all night 

with him, they were glad to part after an hour or two, and 

go to bed. 

In 1778, Boswell came to London and found Johnson 
absorbed, to an extent which apparently excited his jea- 
lousy, by his intimacy with the Thrales. They had, how- 
ever, several agreeable meetings. One was at the club, 
and BosweU's report of the conversation is the fullest 
that we have of any of its meetings. A certain reserve 
is indicated by his using initials for the interlocutors, of 
whom, however, one can be easily identified as Burke. 
The talk began by a discussion of an antique statue, said 
to be the dog of Alcibiades, and valued at 1000?. Burke 
said that the representation of no animal could be worth 
so much. Johnson, whose taste for art was a vanishing 
quantity, said that the value was proportional to the dif- 
ficulty. A statue, as he argued on another occasion, would 
be worth nothing if it were cut out of a carrot. Every- 



134 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap: 

thing, he now said, was valuable which "enlarged the 
sphere of human powers." The first man who balanced 
a straw upon his nose, or rode upon three horses at once, 
deserved the applause of mankind ; and so statues of ani- 
mals should be preserved as a proof of dexterity, though 
men should not continue such fruitless labours. 

The conversation became more instructive under the 
guidance of Burke. He maintained what seemed to his 
hearers a paradox, though it would be interesting to hear 
his arguments from some profounder economist than Bos- 
well, tlat a country would be made more populous by 
emigration. " There are bulls enough in Ireland," lie 
remarked incidentally in the course of the argument. 
" So, sir, I should think from your argument," said John- 
eon, for once condescending to an irresistible pun. It is 
recorded, too, that be once made a bull liimseK, observing 
that a horse was so slow that when it went up hill, it 
stood still. If he now failed to appreciate Burke's argu- 
ment, he made one good remark. Another speaker said 
that unhealthy countries were the most populous. *' Coun- 
tries which are the most populous," replied Johnson, 
"have the most destructive diseases. That is the true 
state of the proposition ;" and indeed, the remark applies 
to the case of emigration. 

A discussion then took place as to whether it would be 
worth while for Burke to take so much trouble with 
speeches which never decided a vote. Burke replied that 
a speech, though it did not gain one vote, would have an 
influence, and maintained that the House of Commons 
was not wholly corrupt. " We are all more or less 
governed by interest," was Johnson's comment. " But 
interest wiU not do everything. In a case which admits 
of doubt, we try to think on the side which is for our inte- 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITERARY DICTATOR. 135 

rest, and generally bring ourselves to act accordingly. 
But the subject must admit of diversity of colouring ; it 
must receive a colour on that side. In the House of Com- 
mons there are meinbers enough who will not vote what 
is grossly absurd and unjust. No, sir, there must always 
be right enough, or appearance of right, to keep wrong in 
countenance." After some deviations, the conversation 
returned to this point. Johnson and Burke agreed on a 
characteristic statement. Burke said that from his expe- 
rience he bad learnt to think better of mankind. " From 
my experience,'^ replied Johnson, "T have found them 
worse on commercial dealings, more disposed to cheat than 
I had any notion of; but more disposed to do one another 
good than I had conceived." " Less just, and more benefi- 
cent," as another speaker suggested. Johnson proceeded 
to say that considering the pressure of want, it was won- 
derful that men would do so much for each other. The 
greatest liar is said to speak more truth than falsehood, 
and perhaps the worst man might do more good than not. 
But when Bos well suggested that perhaps experience 
might increase our estimate of human happiness, Johnson 
returned to his habitual pessimism. " 'No, sir, the more 
we inquire, the more we shall find men less happy." The 
talk soon wandered off into a disquisition upon the folly 
of deliberately testing the strength of our friend's affection. 

The evening ended by Johnson accepting a commission 
to write to a friend who had given to the Club a hogshead 
of claret, and to request another, Avith *^ a happy am- 
biguity of expression," in the hopes that it might also 
be a present. 

Some days afterwards, another conversation took place, 
which has a certain celebrity in Boswellian literature 
The scene was at Dilly's, and the guests included Miss 



136 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [char ; 

Seward and Mrs. Knowles, a well-known Quaker Lady.j 
Before dinner Johnson seized upon a book which he kept \ 
in his lap during dinner, wrapped up in the table-cloth. 
His attention was not distracted from the various business ' 
of the hour, but he hit upon a topic which happily com* i 
bined the two appropriate veins of thought. He boasted I 
that he would write a cookery-book upon philosophical, 
principles ; and declared in opposition to Miss Seward 
that such a task was beyond the sphere of woman. Per- 
haps this led to a discussion upon the privileges of men, in' 
which Johnson put down Mrs. Knovvles, who had some 
hankering for women's rights, by the Shakspearian' 
maxim that if two men ride on a horse, one must ride| 
behind. Driven from her position in this world, poor; 
Mrs. Knowles hoped that sexes might be equal in the| 
next, Eoswell reproved her by the remark already quoted,! 
that men might as well expect to be equal to angels. He 
enforces this view by an illustration suggested by the 
" Eev. Mr. Brown of Utrecht," who had observed that ai 
great or small glass might be equally full, though not^ 
holding equal quantities. Mr. Brown intended this for a! 
confutation of Hume, who has said that a little Miss,! 
dressed for a ball, may be as happy as an orator who has 
won some triumphant success.^ 

The conversation thus took a theological turn, andj 
Mrs. Knowles was fortunate enough to win Johnson's 
high approval. He defended a doctrine maintained by 
Soame Jenyns, that friendship is not a Christian virtue.! 
Mrs. Knowles remarked that Jesus Lad twelve disciplesj 



^ Boswell remarks as a curious coincidence that the same illus- 
tration had been used by a Dr. King, a dissenting minister; 
Doubtless it has been used often enough. For one instance see 
I)onne*s Sermons (Alfoid's Edition), voL i, p. 5. 



IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITER AEY DICTATOR. 13Y 

but there was one whom he loved, Johnson, " with eyes 
sparkling benignantly/' exclaimed, " Very well indeed, 
madam ; you have said very well ! " 

So far all had gone smoothly ; hut here, for some inex- 
plicable reason, Johnson burst into a sudden fury against 
the American rebels, whom he described as "rascals, 

I robbers, pirates," and roared out a tremendous volley, 

I which might almost have been audible across the Atlantic. 

*j BosweU sat and trembled, but gradually diverted the sage 
to less exciting topics. The name of Jonathan Edwards 
suggested a discussion upon free will and necessity, upon 
which poor Boswell was much given to worry himself. 
Some time afterwards Johnson wrote to him, in answer 
to one of his lamentations : " I hoped you had got rid of 
aU this hypocrisy of misery. "What have you to do with 
liberty and necessity 1 Or what more than to hold your 
tongue about it 1, " Boswell could never take this sensible 
advice ; but he got little comfort from his oracle. " We 
know that we are aU free, and there's an end on't," was 
his statement on one occasion, and now he could only 

'\ say, " All theory is against the freedom of the will, and all 
experience for it." 

Some familiar topics followed, which play a great part 
in BosweU's reports. Among the favourite topics of 
the sentimentalists of the day was the denunciation of 
"luxury," and of civilized life in general. There was 

1 a disposition to find in the South Sea savages or 
American Indians an embodiment of the fancied state 
of nature. Johnson heartily despised the affectation. 
He was told of an American woman who had to be bound 
in order to keep her from savage life. " She must have 
been an animal, a beast," said Boswell. " Sir," said 
Johnson, " she was a speaking cat." Somebody quoted 

7 



138 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [ohap. t 

to him with admiration the soliloquy of an officer whc 
had lived in the wilds of America : ** Here am I, free and 
unrestrained, amidst the rude magnificence of nature, with |l 
the Indian woman by my side, and this gun, with which i 
I can procure food when I want it ! What more can i 
be desired for human happiness?'* "Do not allow your- >' 
self, sir," replied Johnson, " to be imposed upon by such 
gross absurdity. It is sad stuff; it is brutish. If a buU 
could speak, he might as well exclaim, * Here am I with 
this cow and this grass ; what being can enjoy greater i 
felicity'?'" When Johnson implored Boswell to "clear 
his mind of cant," he was attacking his disciple for affect- 
ing a serious depression about public affairs : but the cant 
which he hated vrould certainly have included as its first 
article an admiration for the state of nature. 

On the present occasion Johnson defended luxury, and 
said that he had learnt much from Mandeville — a shrewd 
cynic, in whom Johnson's hatred for humbug is exag- 
gerated into a general disbelief in real as well as sham 
nobleness of sentiment. As the conversation proceeded, 
Johnson expressed his habitual horror of death, and t 
caused Miss Seward's ridicule by talking seriously of 
ghosts and the importance of the question of their reality ; 
and then followed an explosion, which seems to have 
closed this characteristic evening. A young woman had 
become a Quaker under the influence of Mrs. Knowles, 
who now proceeded to deprecate Johnson's wrath at what 
he regarded as an apostasy. " Madam," he said, " she is 
an odious wench," and he proceeded to denoimce her 
audacity in presuming to choose a religion for herself. 
" She knew no more of the points of difference," he said, 
"than of the difference between the Copernican and 
Ptolemaic systems." When Mrs. Knowles said that she 



i 



'! IV.] JOHNSON AS A LITEEARY DICTATOB. 189 

ij had the New Testament "before her, he said that it was 
the " most difficult book in the world," and he proceeded 
to attack the unlucky proselyte with a fury which shocked 
the two ladies. Mrs. Knowles afterwards published a 
report of this conversation, and obtained another report, 
with which, however, she was not satisfied, from Miss 
Seward. Both of them represent the poor doctor as 
hopelessly confuted by the mild dignity and calm reason 
of Mrs. Knowles, though the triumph is painted in far 
the brightest colours by Mrs. Knowles herseK. Un- 
luckily, there is not a trace of Johnson's manner, except 
in one phrase, in either report, and they are chiefly curio u? 
as an indirect testimony to Boswell's superior powers. 
The passage, in which both the ladies agree, is that John- 
son, on the expression of Mrs. Knowles*s hope that he 
would meet the young lady in another world, retorted 
that he was not fond of meeting fools anywhere. 

Poor Boswell was at this time a water-drinker by 
Johnson's recommendation, though unluckily for him- 
self he never broke off his drinking habits for long. 
They had a conversation at Paoli's, in which Boswell 
argued against his present practice. Johnson remarked 
" that wine gave a man nothing, but only put in motion 
what had been locked up in frost." It was a key, 
suggested some one, which opened a box, but the box 
I might be full or empty. " JSTay, sir," said Johnson, 
I " conversation is the key, wine is a picklock, which 
j forces open the box and injures it. A man should 
: cultivate his mind, so as to have that confidence and 
! readiness without wine which wine gives." Boswell 
I characteristically said that the great difficulty was from 
1 "benevolence." It was hard to refuse '* a good, worthy 
I man " who asked you to try his cellar. This, according? 
K 



140 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chai^ % 

to Johnson, was mere conceit, implying an exaogerate(|niai 
estimate of your importance to your entertainer. Eeynoldil few 
gallantly took up the opposite side, and produced 
one recorded instance of a Johnsonian blush. " I won'; 
argue any more with you, sir," said Johnson, who though J3 fc 
every man to bo elevated who drank wine, " you are to(ji 
far gone." " I should have thought so indeed, sir, had ] 
made such a speech as you have now done," said Eeynolds 
and Johnson apologized with the aforesaid blush. 

The explosion was soon over on this occasion. ;N"oi 
long afterwards, Johnson attacked Boswell so tiercel) 
at a dinner at Eeynolds's, that the poor disciple kepi 
away for a week. They made it up when they met 
next, and Johnson solaced Boswell's wounded vanity by 
highly commending an image made by him to express 
his feelings. "I don't care how often or how high 
Johnson tosses me, when only friends are present, for then 
I fall upon soft ground; but I do not like falling on 
stones, which is the case when enemies are present.*' 
The phrase may recall one of Johnson's happiest illustra- 
tions. When some one said, in his presence that a conge\ 
cCelire might be considered as only a strong recommenda- 
tion : "Sir," replied Johnson, "it is such a recommerda- 
tion as if I should throw you out of a two-pair of stairs 
window, and recommend you to fall soft." j 

It is perhaps time to cease these extracts from Boswell's 
reports. The next two years were less fruitful. In 1779 
Boswell was careless, though twice in London, and in 
1780, he did not pay his annual visit. Boswell has 
partly filled up the gap by a collection of sayings made 
by Langton, some passages from which have been 
quoted, and his correspondence gives various details. 
Garrick died in January of 1779, and Beauclerk in 



^!iv;j JOHNSON AS A LITEEAEY DICTATOR. 141 

,j 

i| March, 1780. Johnson himself seems to have shown 

^\iew symptoms of increasing age; but a change was 
'Approaching, and the last years of his life were destined 
to be clouded, not merely by physical weakness, but by a 
'f change of circumstances which had great influence upon 
I his happiness. 



142 SAMUE[. JOHNSON. [chap: 



CHAPTER V. L^ ffl' 

f 

THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON's LIFE. [ 



[aj 

eai 

en' 

fjtieii 

i 

Id'}! 



i 



V( 



In following Boswell's guidance we have necessarily seer 
only one side of Johnson's life ; and probably that side 
which had least significance for the man himself. 

Eoswell saw in him chiefly the great dictator of conver 
sation ; and though the reports of Johnson's talk represent ; 
his character in spite of some qualifications with unusual 
fulness, there were many traits very inadequately revealed 
at the Mitre or the Club, at Mrs. Thrale's, or in meetings 
with Wilkes or Reynolds. We may catch some glimpses 
from his letters and diaries of that inward life which con^ 
sisted generally in a long succession of struggles against an{' 
oppressive and often paralysing melancholy. Another' 
most noteworthy side to his character is revealed in his' 
relations to persons too humble for admission to the tables; 
at which he exerted a despotic sway. Upon this sidei 
Johnson was almost entirely loveable. We often have to 
regret the imperfection of the records of 

That best portion of a good man's life, if 

His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
Of kindness and of love. 

Everywhere in Johnson's letters and in the occasional: 
anecdotes, we come upon indications of a tenderness 
and untiring benevolence which would make us forgive 



ck] THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON^S LIFE. 143 

far worse faults than have ever been laid to his charge. 
,^ay, the very asperity of the man's outside becomes en- 
deared to us by the association. His irritability never 
Rented itself against the helpless, and his rough impa- 
tience of fanciful troubles implied no want of sympathy 
lor real sorrow. One of Mrs. Thrale's anecdotes is in- 
tended to show Johnson's harshness : — " When I one day 
lamented the loss of a first cousin killed in America, 
\ Pr'ythee, my dear,' said he, * have done with canting ; 
Jhow would the world be the worse for it, I may ask, if all 
jyour relations were at once spitted like larks and roasted 
(for Presto's supper ] ' Presto was the dog that lay under 
^he table while we talked." The counter version, given 
jby Boswell is, that Mrs. Thrale related her cousin's death 
in the midst of a hearty supper, and that Johnson, shocked 
at her want of feeling, said, " Madam, it would give you 
very little concern if all your relations were spitted like 
those larks, and roasted for Presto's supper." Taking the 
most unfavourable version, we may judge how much real 
indifference to human sorrow was implied by seeing how 
Johnson was affected by a loss of one of his humblest 
friends. It is but one case of many. In 1767, he took 
, leave, as he notes in his diary, of his " dear old friend, 
j Catherine Chambers," who had been for about forty-three 
i years in the service of his family. ^* I desired all to with- 
I draw," he says, " then told her that we were to part for 
I ever, and, as Christians, we should part with prayer, and 
I that I would, if she was willing, say a short prayer beside 
j her. She expressed great desire to hear me, and held up her 
j, poor hands as she lay in bed, with great fervour, while I 
I prayed, kneeling by her, in nearly the following words " — 
I which shall not be repeated here — " I then kissed her,V 
i he adds. ^* She told me that to part was the greatest pain 



144 SAMUEL JOHNSOK. [chap. I 



9 



that she had ever felt, and that she hoped we should meet 
again in a better place. I expressed, with swelled eye«, 
and great emotion of kindness, the same hopes. We t|i]] 
kissed and parted — I humbly hope to meet again and part fii 
no more." lie 

A man with so true and tender a heart could say 'n\ 
serenely, what with some men would be a mere excuse for j 
want of sympathy, that he " hated to hear people whine ,1 
about metaphysical distresses when there was so much vfant li 
and hunger in the world." He had a sound and righteous ' 
contempt for all affectation of excessive sensibility. Sup- I 
pose, said Boswell to him, whilst their common friend i 
Baretti was lying under a charge of murder, *• that one of i 
your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for [' 
which he might be hanged." " I should do what I could," t 
replied Johnson, " to bail him, and give him any other d 
assistance ; but if he were once fairly hanged, I should :i 
not suffer." " Would you eat your dinner that day, sir ? " ! 
asks Boswell. " Yes, sir ; and eat it as if he were eating I 
with me. Why there's Baretti, who's to be tried for his |i 
life to-morrow. Friends have risen up for him upon every ! 
side ; yet if he should be hanged, none of them will eat a 
slice of plum-pudding the less. Sir, that sympathetic ' 
feeling goes a very little way in depressing the mind." | 
Boswell illustrated the subject by saying that Tom Davies 
had just written a letter to Foote, telling him that he could 
not sleep from concern about Baretti, and at the same 
time recommending a young man who kept a pickle-shop, i 
Johnson summed up by the remark: **You will find 
these very feeling people are not very ready to do yon 
good. Thej pay jom\) J feeling,'' Johnson never objected 
to feeling, but to the waste of feeling. 

In a similar vein he told Mrs. Thrale that a *^ surly fel 



iv.] THE CLOSING YEAES OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. 145 

! 

ilow " like himself had no compassion to spare for "wounds 
jgiven to vanity and softness, " whilst witnessing the com- 
jmon sight of actual want in great cities. On Lady Tavistock* 3 
1 death, said to have been caused by grief for her husband's 
I loss, he observed that her life might have been saved if 
" she had been put into a small chandler's shop, wdth a child 
' to nurse. When Mrs. Thrale suggested that a lady would 
be grieved because her friend had lost the chance of a for- 
I tune, " She will suffer as much, perhaps," he replied, 
I " as your horse did when your cow miscarried." Mrs. 
! Thrale testifies that he once reproached her sternly for 
! complaining of the dust. When he knew, he said, how 
; many poor families would perish next winter for want 
I of the bread which the drought would deny, he could 
not bear to hear ladies sighing for rain on account of their 
complexions or their clothes. While reporting such say- 
ings, she adds, that he loved the poor as she never saw any 
one else love them, with an earnest desire to make them 
happy. His charity was unbounded ; he proposed "to 
allow himself one hundred a year out of the three hundred 
of his pension ; but the Thrales could never discover that 
he really spent upon himself more than 70Z., or at most 
80?. He had numerous dependants, abroad as well as at 
home, who " did not like to see him latterly, unless he 
brought 'em money." He filled his pockets with small 
cash which he distributed to beggars in defiance of political 
3conomy. When told that the recipients only laid it out 
upon gin or tobacco, he replied that it was savage to deny 
them the few coarse pleasures which the richer disdained. 
!N'umerous instances are given of more judicious charity. 
When, for example, a Eenedictine monk, w^hom he had 
seen in Paris, became a Protestant, Johnson supporte-d 
him for some months in London, till he could get a living* 



146 SAMUEL JOHNSON. IcblvI 

Once coming home late at night, he found a poor womaul 
lying in the street. He carried her to his house on his' 
back, and found that she was reduced to the lowest stage 
of want, poverty, and disease. He took care of her at his| 
own charge, with all tenderness, until she was restored 
to health, and tried to have her put into a virtuous way of 
living. His house, in his later years, was filled with 
various waifs and strays, to whom he gave hospitality and 
sometimes support, defending himself by saying that if he. 
did not help them nobody else would. The head of his 
household was Miss Williams, who had been a friend of 
his wife's, and after coming to stay with him, in order to I 
undergo an operation for cataract, became a permanent' 
inmate of his house. She had a small income of some!- 
40Z. a year, partly from the charity of connexions of hen 
father's, and partly arising from a little book of miscel-i 
lanies published by subscription. She was a woman off 
some sense and cultivation, and when she died (in 1783) 
Johnson said that for thirty years she had been to him as 
a sister. Bos well's jealousy was excited during the first | 
period of his acquaintance, when Goldsmith one night h 
went home with Johnson, crying " I go to Miss Williams " i ^ 
— a phrase which implied admission to an intimacy from 
which Bos well was as yet excluded. Boswell soon obtained 
the coveted privilege, and testifies to the respect with 
which Johnson always treated the inmates of his family. 
Before leaving her to dine with Boswell at the hotel, he 
asked her what little delicacy should be sent to her from 
the tavern. Poor Miss Williams, however, was peevish, 
and, according to Hawkins, had been known to drive John- 
son out of the room by her reproaclres, and Boswell's 
delicacy was shocked by the supposition that she tested the 
fulness of cups of tea, by putting her finger inside We are 



v.] THE CLOSING YEAES OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. 147 

glad to know that this was a false impression, and, in 
fact, Miss Williams, h:)wever unfortunate in temper and 
circumstances, seems to have been a lady by manners and 
education. 

The next inmate of this queer household was Eobert 
Levett, a man who had been a waiter at a coffee-house in 
Paris frequented by surgeons. They had enabled him to 
pick up some of their art, and he set up as an '^ obscure 
practiser in physic amongst the lower people " in London. 
He took from them such fees as he could get, including 
provisions, sometimes, unfortunately for him, of the 
potable kind. He Avas once entrapped into a queer mar- 
riage, and Johnson had to arrange a separation from his 
wife. Johnson, it seems, had a good opinion of his 
medical skill, and more or less employed his services in 
that capacity. He attended his patron at his breakfast ; 
'[breakfasting, said Percy, "on the crust of a roll, which 
Johnson threw to him after tearing out the crumb." The 
phrase, it is said, goes too far ; Johnson always took pains 
that Levett should be treated rather as a friend than as a 
dependant. 

Besides these humble friends, there was a Mrs. Des- 

:i moulins, the daughter of a Lichfield physician. Johnson 

had had some quarrel with the father in his youth for 

revealing a confession of the mental disease which tortured 

him from early years. He supported Mrs. Desmoulins 

none the less, giving house-room to her and her daughter, 

and making her an allowance of half- a -guinea a week, a 

*sum equal to a twelfth part of his pension. Francis 

I Barber has already been mentioned, and we have a dim 

P vision of a Miss Carmichael, who completed what he 

facetiously called his " seraglio." It was anything but » 

i happy family. He summed up their relations in a letter 



148 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

to Mi-s. Thrale. " Williams," he says, *' hates everybody ; 
Levett hates Desinoulins, and does not love Williams ; 
Desmoulins hates them both ; Poll (Miss Carmichael) 
loves none of them." Frank Barber complained of Miss | 
Williams's authority, and Miss Williams of Frank's in- • 
subordination. Intruders who had taken refuge under 
his roof, brought their children there in his absence, and 
grumbled if their dinners were ill-dressed. The old man 
bore it alL relieving himself by an occasional growl, but 
reproaching any who ventured to join in the growl for 
their indifference to the sufferings of poverty. Levett 
died in January, 1782 ; Miss Williams died, after a linger- 
ing illness, in 1783, and Johnson grieved in solitude for 
the loss of his testy companions. A poem, composed 
upon Levett's death, records his feelings in language which ^ 
wants the refinement of Goldsmith or the intensity of 
Cowper's pathos, but which is yet so sincere and tender 
as to be more impressive than far more elegant compo- 
sitions. It will be a fitting close to this brief indi^.tion 
of one side of Johnson's character, too easily over> joked 
in Boswell's pages, to quote part of what Thackei..;/ ^'ily ' 
calls the " sacred verses " upon Levett : — 

Well tried through many a varying year 

See Levett to the grave descend. 
Officious, innocent, sincere, 

Of every fiiendless name the friend. 

In misery's darkest cavern known, 

His ready help was ever nigh ; 
Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, 

And lonely want retired to die. 

No snmmons mock'd by dull delay, 

No petty gains disdain'd by pride ; j 

The modest wants of every day, 

The toil of every day supplied. 



!V.J THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. 149 



His virtues walked their narrow round, 
I Nor made a pause, nor left a void j 

} And sure the eternal Master found 

|l His single talent well employed. 

The busy day, the peaceful night, 

Unfelt, uncounted, glided by ; 
His frame was firm, his eye was bright, 

Though now his eightieth year was nigh. 

Then, with no throbs of fiery pain. 

No cold gradations of decay. 
Death broke at once the vital chain. 

And freed his soul the easiest way. 

The last stanza smells somewliat of the country tomb- 
\ stone ; but to read the whole and to realize the deep, 
manly sentiment which it implies, without tears in one's 
eyes is to me at least impossible. 

There is one little touch which may be added before we 

proceed to the closing years of this tender-hearted old 

I moralist. Johnson loved little children, calling them 

j " little dears," and cramming them with sweetmeats, 

though we regret to add that he once snubbed a little 

child rather severely for a want of acquaintance with the 

Pllgrim^s Progress. His cat, Hodge, should be famous 

j amongst the lovers of the race. He used to go out and 

I buy oysters for Hodge, that the servants might not take 

I a dislike to the animal from having to serve it themselves 

I He reproached his wife for beating a cat before the maid, 

j lest she should give a precedent for cruelty. Bos well, 

■ who cherished an antipathy to cats, suffered at seeing 

; Hodge scrambling up Johnson's breast, whilst he 

I smiled and rubbed the beast's back and pulled its tail. 

j Bozzy remarked that he was a fine cat. " Why, yes, sir,"^ 

\ said Johnson ; " but I have had cats whom I liked better 



150 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chat*. 

than this," and then, lest Hodge should be put out of 
countenance, he added, " but he is a very fine cat, a very 
fine cat indeed." He told Langton once of a young 
gentleman who, when last heard of, was " running about 
town shooting cats; but," he murmured in a kindly 
reverie, " Hodge shan't be shot ; no, no, Hodge shall 
not be shot!" Once, when Johnson was staying at a 
house in Wales, the gardener brought in a hare which had 
been caught in the potatoes. The order was given to 
take it to the cook. Johnson asked to have it placed in 
his arms. He took it to the window and let it go, shout- 
ing to increase its speed. When his host complained 
that he had perhaps spoilt the dinner, Johnson replied 
by insisting that the rights of hospitality included an 
animal which had thus placed itself under the protection 
of the master of the garden. 

We must proceed, however, to a more serious event. 
The year 1781 brought with it a catastrophe which pro- 
foundly affected the brief remainder of Johnson's life. 
Mr. Thrale, whose health had been shaken by fits, died 
suddenly on the 4th of April. The ultimate consequence 
was Johnson's loss of the second home, in which he had 
so often found refuge from melancholy, alleviation of 
physical suffering, and pleasure in social converse. The 
change did not follow at once, but as the catastrophe of a 
little social drama, upon the rights and wrongs of which 
a good deal of controversy has been expended. 

Johnson was deeply affected by the loss of a friend 
whose face, as he said, " had never been turned upon hin* 
through fifteen years but with respect and benignity." 
He wrote solemn and affecting letters to the widow, and 
busied himself strenuously in her sei'vice. Thrale had 
made him one of liis executors, leaving him a small 



i V.l THE CLOSING YEAllS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. 151 

I 

ii legacy ; and Johnson took, it seems, a rather simple- 
minded pleasure in dealing with important commercial 
affairs and signing cheques for large sums of money. The 

'i old man of letters, to whom three hundred a year had 
been superabundant wealth, was amused at finding himself 

f' in the position of a man of business, regulating what was 

' then regarded as a princely fortune. The brewery was 
sold after a time, and Johnson bustled about with an ink- 
horn and pen in his button-hole. When asked what was 
the value of the property, he replied magniloquently, 
" We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but 
the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of 
avarice." The brewery was in fact sold to Barclay, 
Perkins, and Co. for the sum of ]35,000Z., and some 
years afterwards it was the largest concern of the kind in 
the world. 

The first effect of the change was probably rather to 
tighten than to relax the bond of union with the Thrale 
family. During the winter of 1781-2, Johnson's in- 
firmities were growing upon him. In the beginning of 
1782 he was suffering from an illness which excited 
serious apprehensions, and he went to Mrs. Thrale's, as the 
only house where he could use "all the freedom that 
sickness requires." She nursed him carefully, and ex- 
pressed her feelings with characteristic vehemence in a 
curious journal which he had encouraged her to keep. It 
records her opinions about her affairs and her family, with 
a frankness remarkable even in writing intended for no 
eye but her own. *^ Here is Mr. Johnson very ill," she 
writes on the 1st of February ;...." What shall we do 
for him ? If I lose Mm, 1 am more than undone — friend, 
father, guardian, confidant ! God give me health antl 
patience! What shaU I do?" There is no reason to 



152 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap, j 

doubt the sincerity of these sentiments, though they seem 1 1 
to represent a mood of excitement. They show that for'l 
ten months after Thrale's death Mrs. Thrale was keenly | 
sensitive to the value of Johnson's friendship. j 

A change, however, was approaching. Towards the 
end of 1780 Mrs. Thrale had made the acquaintance of an 
Italian musician named Piozzi, a man of amiable and 
honourable character, making an independent income by 
his profession, but to the eyes of most people rather in- ^ 
offensive than specially attractive. The friendship between i 
Mrs. Thrale and Piozzi rapidly became closer, and by the I 
end of 1781 she was on very intimate terms with the 
gentleman whom she calls " my Piozzi.'' He had been 
making a professional trip to the Continent during part 
of the period since her husband's death, and ipon his 
return inl^ovember, Johnson congratulated her upon having 
two friends who loved her, in terms which suggest no 
existing feeling of jealousy. During 1782 the mutual 
affection of the lady and the musician became stronger, 
and in the autumn they had avowed it to each other, and 
were discussing the question of marriage. 

"No one who has had some experience of life will be 
inclined to condemn Mrs. Thrale for her passion. Eathex 
the capacity for a passion not excited by an intrinsically 
unworthy object should increase our esteem for her. Her 
marriage with Thrale had been, as has been said, one of 
convenience; and, though she bore him many children 
and did her duty faithfully, she never loved him. To- 
wards the end of his life he had made her jealous by very 
marked attentions to the pretty and sentimental Sophy 
Streatfield, which once caused a scene at his table ; and 
during the last two years his mind had been weakened, 
and his conduct had caused her anxiety and discomfort. 



v.] THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. 153 

It is not surprising that she should welcome the warm 
and simple devotion of her new lover, though she was of 
a ripe age and the mother of grown-up daughters. 

It is, however, equally plain that an alliance with a 
foreign fiddler was certain to shock British respectability. 
It is the old story of the quarrel between Philistia and 
Bohemia. 'Nov was respectability without much to say 
for itself. Piozzi was a Catholic as wqU as a foreigner ; 
to marry him was in all probability to break with daugh- 
ters just growing into womanhood, whom it was obviously 
her first duty to protect. The marriage, therefore, might 
be regarded as not merely a revolt against conventional 
morality, but as leading to a desertion of country, religion, 
and family. Her children, her husband's friends, and her 
whole circle were certain to look upon the match with 
feelings of the strongest disapproval, and she admitted to 
herself that the objections were founded upon something 
more weighty than a fear of the world's censure. 

Johnson, in particular, among whose virtues one 
cannot reckon a superiority to British prejudice, would 
inevitably consider the marriage as simply degrading. 
Foreseeing this, and wishing to avoid the pain of rejecting 
advice which she felt unable to accept, she refrained 
from retaining her ^' friend, father, and guardian " in the 
position of " confidant." Her situation in the summer of 
1782 was therefore exceedingly trying. She was unhappy 
at home. Her children, she complains, did not love her; 
her servants " devoured " her ; her friends censured her ; 
and her expenses were excessive, whilst the loss of a 
lawsuit strained her resources. Johnson, sickly, suffering 
and descending into the gloom of approaching decay, 
was present like a charged thunder- cloud ready to buist 
at any moment, if she allowed him to approach the chief 



154 SAMUEL JOHNSON. 'chap. 

subject of her thonghts. Though not in love with Mrs. 
Thrale, lie had a very intelligible' feeling of jealousy 
towards any one who threatened to distract her allegiance. 
Under such circumstances we might expect the state of 
things which Miss Burney described long afterwards 
(though with some confusion of dates). Mrs. Thrale, 
she says, was absent and agitated, restless in manner, 
and hurried in speech, forcing smiles, and averting her 
eyes from her friends ; neglecting every one, including 
Johnson and excepting only Miss Burney herself, to 
whom the secret was confided, and the situation therefore 
explained. Gradually, according to Miss Burney, she 
became more petulant to Johnson than she was herself 
aware, gave palpable hints of being worried by his com- 
pany, and finally excited his resentment and suspicion. 
In one or two utterances, though he doubtless felt the 
expedience of reserve, he intrusted his forebodings to 
Miss Burney, and declared that Streatham was lost to 
him for ever. 

At last, in the end of August, the crisis came. Mrs. 
Thrale's lawsuit had gone against her. She thought it 
lesirable to go abroad and save money. It had more- 
)ver been '' long her dearest wish " to see Italy, with 
Piozzi for a guide. The one difficulty (as she says in her 
journal at the time), was that it seemed equally hard to 
part with Johnson or to take him with her till he had 
I'egained strength. At last, however she took courage to 
confide to him her plans for travel. To her extreme an 
Qoyance he fully approved of them. He advised her to 
go ; anticipated her return in two or three years ; and told 
her daughter that he should not accompany them, even if 
rivitcd. IN'o behaviour, it may be admitted, could be 
more provoking than this unforeseen reasonableness. To 



v.] THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. 155 

I nerve oneself to part with a friend, and to find 

I the friend perfectly ready, and all your battery of argn- 

1 ment thrown away is most vexatious. The poor man 

i should have begged her to stay with him, or to take him 

f with her; he should have made the scene which she 

professed to dread, but which would have been the best 

proof of her power. The only conclusion which could 

really have satisfied her — though she, in all probability, did 

not know it — would have been an outburst which would 

L have justified a rupture, and allowed her to protest against 

f his tyranny as she now proceeded to protest against his 

complacency. 

Johnson wished to go to Italy two years later ; and 
his present willingness to be left was probably caused 
^ by a growing sense of the dangers which threatened 
their friendship. Mrs. Thrale^s anger appears in her 
I journal. He had never really loved her, she declares ; 
his affection for her had been interested, though even 
in her wrath she admits that he really loved her husband ; 
he cared less for her conversation, which she had fancied 
necessary to his existence, than for her ^' roast beef and 
plumb pudden," which he now devours too "dirtily 
for endurance." She was fully resolved to go, and yet she 
could not bear that her going should fail to torture the 
friend whom for eighteen years she had loved and 
cherished so kindly. 

No one has a right at once to insist upon the compliance 
of his friends, and to insist that it should be a painful 
compliance. Still Mrs. Thrale's petulant outburst was 
natural enough. It requires notice because her subse- 
quent account of the rupture has given rise to attacks on 
Johnson's character. Her "Anecdotes," written in 1785, 
show that her real affection for Johnson was still coloured 
L 



156 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

by resentment for his conduct at this and a later period. 
They have an apologetic character which shows itself in a 
statement as to the origin of the quarrel, curiously 
different from the contemporary accounts in the diary. 
She says ,suhstantially, and the whole hook is written so 
as to give probability to the assertion, that Johnsons 
bearishness and demands upon her indulgence had become 
intolerable, when he was no longer under restraint from 
her husband's presence. She therefore '^ took advantage " 
of her lost lawsuit and other troubles to leave London, 
and thus escape from his domestic tyranny. He no 
longer, as she adds, suffered from anything but " old age 
and general infirmity " (a tolerably wide exception !), and 
did not require her nursing. She therefore withdrew 
from the yoke to which she had contentedly submitted 
during her husband's life, but which was intolerable when 
her " coadjutor was no more." 

Johnson's society was, we may easily believe, very 
trying to a widow in such a position ; and it seems to be 
true that Thrale was better able than Mrs. Thrale to restrain 
his oddities, little as the lady shrunk at times from reason- 
able plain-speaking. But the later account involves some- 
thing more than a bare suppression of the truth. The 
excuse about his health is, perhaps, the worst part of 
her case, because obviously insincere. !N'obody could be 
more fully aware than Mrs. Thrale that Johnson's infir- 
mities were rapidly gathering, and that another winter or 
two must iu all probability be fatal to liim. She knew, 
therefore, that he was never more in want of the care 
which, as she seems to imply, had saved him from the 
specific tendency to something like madness. She knew, 
in fact, that she was throwing him upon the care of his 
other friends, zealous and affectionate enough, it is true, 



\r.] THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. L57 

but yet unable to supply him with the domestic comforta 
of Streatham. She clearly felt that this was a real in- 
jury, inevitable it might be under the circumstances, but 
certainly not to be extenuated by the paltry evasion as to 
his improved health. So far from Johnson's health being 
now established, she had not dared to speak until his 
temporary recovery from a dangerous illness, which had 
provoked her at the time to the strongest expressions oi 
anxious regret. She had (according to the diary) regarded 
a possible breaking of the yoke in the early part of 1782 
as a terrible evil, whiuh would "more than ruin her." 
Even when resolved to leave Streatham, her one great 
difficulty is the dread of parting with Johnson, and the 
pecuniary troubles are tLd solid and conclusive reason. 
In the later account the ' money question is the mere pre- 
text ; the desire to leave J uhnson the true motive ; and 
the long-cherished desire to see Italy with Piozzi is judi- 
ciously dropped out of notice altogether. 

The truth is plain enough. Mrs. Thrale was torn by 
conflicting feelings. She still loved Johnson, and yet 
dreaded his certain disapproval of her strongest wishes. 
She respected him, but was resolved not to follow his 
advice. She wished to treat him with kindness and to be 
repaid with gratitude, and yet his presence and his affec- 
tion were full of intolerable inconveniences. When an 
old friendship becomes a burden, the smaller infirmities of 
manner and temper to which we once submitted willingly, 
become intolerable. She had borne with Johnson's modes 
of eating and with his rough reproofs to herself and her 
I friendf during sixteen years of her married life ; and for 
I nearly a year of her widowhood she still clung to him as 
the wisest and kindest of monitors. His manners had 
undergone no spasmodic change. They became intolerable 



158 SAMUEL JOH^'SON. [chap. 

when, for other reasons, she resented his pas«iLle inter- 
ference, and wanted a very different cruardian and con- 
fidant ; and, therefore, she wished to part, ard yet wished 
that the initiative should come from him. 

The decision to leave Streatham was taken. Johnson 
parted with deep regret from the liouse ; he read a chapter 
of the Testament in the library; he took leave of the 
church with a kiss ; he composed a prayer commeuding 
the family to the protection of Heaven ; and he did not 
forget to note in his journal the details of the last dinner 
of which he partook. This quaint observation may 
have been due to some valetudinary motive, or, more pro 
bably, to some odd freak of association. Once, when 
eating an omelette, he was deeply affected because i*; 
recalled his old friend Xugent. " Ah, my dear friend," 
he said " in an agony," " I shall never eat omelette with 
thee again ! " And in the present case there is an obscure 
reference to some funeral connected in his mind with a 
meal The unlucky entry has caused sonic ridicule, bu: 
need hardly convince us that his l^ve of the family in 
which for so many years he had teen an honoured and 
honour-giving inmate wa., oS ^liss Seward amiably sug- 
gests, in great measure *' kitchen-love." 

Xo immediate ruptare foflovv-ed the abandonment of 
the Streatham estabUshjncnt. Johnson spent some weeks 
at Brighton with Mrs. Thnie, during which a crisis was 
taking place, without his knowledge, in her relations to 
PiozzL After vehement altercations with her daughters, 
whom she criticizes with great bitterness for their utter 
want of heart, she resolved to break with Piozzi for at 
least a time. Her plan was to go to Bath, and there to 
retrench her expenses, in the hopes of being able to recaU 
her lover at some future period. Meanwhile he left her 



v.] THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. 159 

and returned to Italy. After another winter in I,ondon, 
during which Johnson was still a frequent inmate of her 
house, she went to Bath with her daughters in April, 
1783. A melancholy period followed for both the friends. 
Mrs. Thrale lost a younger daughter, and Johnson had a 
paralytic stroke in June. Death was sending preliminary 
warnings. A correspondence w^as kept up, which implies 
that the old terms were not ostensibly broken. Mrs. 
Thrale speaks tartly more than once ; and Johnson's letters 
go into medical details with his customary plainness of 
I speech, and he occasionally indulges in laments over the 
^ supposed change in her feelings. The gloom is thicken- 
ing, and the old playful gallantry has died out. The old 
man evidently felt himself deserted, and suffered from the 
^ breaking-up of the asylum he had loved so well. The 
1 final catastrophe came in 1784, less than six months 
F before Johnson's death. 

After much suffering in mind and body, Mrs. Thrale 
had at last induced her daughters to consent to her mar- 
riage with Piozzi. She sent for him at once, and they 
were married in June, 1784. A painful correspondence 
followed. Mrs. Thrale announced her marriage in a 
friendly letter to Johnson, excusing her previous silence 
I on the ground that discussion could only have caused 
f them pain. The revelation, though Johnson could not 
r have been quite unprepared, produced one of his bursts of 
fury. " Madam, if I interpret your letter rightly," wrote 
the old man, " you are ignominiously married. If it is 
yet undone, let us once more talk together. If you have 
abandoned your children and your religion, God forgive 
your wickedness ! If you have forfeited your fame and 
your country, may your foUy do no further mischief ! If 
the last act is yet to do, I, who have loved you, esteemed 



160 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

yon, reverenced you, and served you — I, who long though.^ 
you the first of womankind— entreat that before your fate 
is irrevocable, I may once more see you ! I was, I once 
was, madam, most truly yours, Sam. Johnson.'* 

Mrs. Tkrale replied with spirit and dignity to this cry 
of blind indignation, speaking of her husband with be- 
coming pride, and resenting the unfortunate phrase about 
her loss of "fame." She ended by declining further 
intercourse till Johnson could change his opinion of 
Piozzi. Johnson admitted in bis reply that he had no 
right to resent her conduct : expressed his gr-atitude for 
the kindness which had " soothed twenty years of a life 
radically wretched," and implored her (*' superfluously," as 
she says) to induce Piozzi to settle in England. He then 
took leave of her with an expression of sad forebodings. 
Mrs. Thrale, now ^Irs. Piozzi, says that she replied affec- 
tionately ; but the letter is missing. The friendship was 
broken off, and during the brief rem.ainder of Johnson's 
life, the Piozzis were absent from England. 

Of her there is little more to be said. After passing 
some time in Italy, where she became a light of that 
wretched little Delia Cruscan society of which some 
faint memory is preserved by Gi fiord's ridicule, now pretty 
nearly forgotten with its objects, she returned with her 
husband to England. Her anecdotes of Johnson, pub- 
lished soon after his death, had a success which, in spite 
of mucb ridicule, encouraged her to some further literary 
efforts of a sprightly but ephemeral kind. She lived 
happily with Piozzi, and never had cause to regret her 
marriage. She was reconciled to her daughters suflSciently 
to renew a friendly intercourse ; but the elder ones set up 
a separate establishment. Piozzi died not long after- 
wards. She was still a vivacious old lady, who celebrated 



v] THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON'S LIFE. 161 

her 80th birthday by a ball, and is supposed at that ripe 
age to have made an offer of marriage to a young actor. 
She died in May, 1821, leaving all that she could dispose 
of to a nephew of Piozzi's, who had been naturalised 
in England. 

Meanwhile Johnson was rapidly approaching the grave. 
His old inmates, Levett and Miss Williams, had gone 
before him ; Goldsmith and Garrick and Beauclerk had 
become memories of the past; and the gloom gathered 
thickly around him. The old man clung to life with 
pathetic earnestness. Though life had been often melan- 
choly, he never affected to conceal the horror with which 
he regarded death. He frequently declared that death 
must be dreadful to every reasonable man. " Death, my 
dear, is very dreadful," he says simply in a letter to Lucy 
Porter in the last year of his life. Still later he shocked 
a pious friend by admitting that the fear oppressed him. 
Dr. Adams tried the ordinary consolation of the divine 
goodness, and went so far as to suggest that hell might 
not imply much positive suffering. Johnson's religious 
views were of a different colour. " I am afraid," he said, 
" I may be one of those who shall be damned." ^' What 
do you mean by damned?" asked Adams. Johnson re- 
plied passionately and loudly, " Sent to hell, sir, and 
punished everlastingly." Eemonstrances only deepened 
his melancholy, and he silenced his friends by exclaiming 
in gloomy agitation, " Til have no more on't !" Often in 
these last years he was heard muttering to himself the 
passionate complaint of Claudio, " Ah, but to die and go 
we know not whither !" At other times he was speaking 
of some lost friend, and saying, ** Poor man — and then he 
died !" The peculiar horror of death, which seems* to 
indicate a tinge of insanity, was combined with utter 



102 SAMUEL JOHXSON. [chap. 

fearlessness of pain. He called to the surgeons to cut 
deeper when performing a painful operation, and shortly 
before his death inflicted such wounds upon himself in 
hopes of obtaining relief as, very erroneously, to suggest 
the idea of suicide. Whilst his strength remained, he 
endeavoured to disperse melancholy by some of the old 
methods. In the winter of 1783-4 he got together the 
few surviving members of the old Ivy Lane Club, which 
had flourished when he was composing the Dldioncmj ; 
but the old place of meeting had vanished, most of the 
original members were dead, and the gathering can have 
been but melancholy. He started another club at the 
Essex Head, whose members were to meet twice a Aveek, 
with the modest fine of threepence for non-attendance. It 
appears to have included a rather '^strange mixture" of 
people, and thereby to have given some scandal to Sir 
John Hawkins and even to Eeynolds. They thought 
that his craving for society, increased by his loss of 
Streatham, was leading him to undignified concessions. 

Amongst the members of the club, however, were such 
men as Horsley and Windham. Windham seems to have 
attracted more personal regard than most politicians, by a 
generous warmth of enthusiasm not too common in the 
class. In politics he was an ardent disciple of Burke's, 
whom he afterwards followed in his separation from the 
new Whigs. But, though adhering to the principles which 
Johnson detested, he knew, like his preceptor, how to 
win Johnson's warmest regard. He was the most eminent 
of the younger generation who now looked up to Johnson 
as a venerable relic from the past. Another was young 
Burke, that very priggish and silly young man as he 
seems to have been, whose loss, none the less, broke the 
tender heart of his father. Friendships, now more in- 



v.] THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSON^S LIFE. 16S 

terestirg, were those with two of the most distinguished 
authoresses of the day. One of them was Hannah More, 
who was ahoufc this time coming to the conclusion that 
the talents which had gained her distinction in the literary 
and e\^en in the dramatic world, should he consecrated to 
less secular employment. Her vivacity during the earlier 
years of their acquaintance exposed her to an occasional 
rehuff. '' She does not gain upon me, sir ; I think her 
empty-headed," was one of his remarks ; and it was to 
her that he said, according to Mrs. Thrale, though Boswell 
reports a softened version of the remark, that she should 
" consider what her flattery was worth, hefore she choked 
him with it." More frequently, he seems to have repaid 
it in kind. " There was no name in poetry," he said, 
^* which might not he glad to own her poem" — the 
Bas BleiL Certainly Johnson did not stick at trifles 
in intercourse with his female friends. He wa-s delighted, 
shortly hefore his death, to " gallant it ahout " with her at 
Oxford, and in serious moments showed a respectful 
regard for her merits. Hannah More, who thus sat at 
the feet of Johnson, encouraged the juvenile amhition of 
Macaulay, and did not die till the historian had grown 
into manhood and fame. The other friendship noticed 
was with Fanny Burney, who also lived to our own 
time. Johnson's affection for this daughter of his friend 
seems to have been amongst the tenderest of his old 
age. When she was first introduced to him at the 
Thrales, she was overpowered and indeed had her 
head a little turned by flattery of the most agreeable 
kind that an author can receive. The "great literary 
Leviathan" showed himseK to have the recently pub- 
lished Evelina at his fingers' ends. He quoted, an9 
almost acted passages. " La ! Polly ! " he exclaimed in a 



164 SaMDEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

pert ieminine accent, " only think ! Miss has danced with 
a lord ! " How many modern readers can assign its place 
to that quotation, or answer the question which pool 
Boswell asked in despair and amidst general ridicule for 
his ignorance, " What is a Brangton ^ " There is some- 
thing pleasant in the enthusiasm with which men like 
Johnson and Burke welcomed the literary achievements 
of the young lady, whose first novels seem to have made 
a sensation almost as lively as that produced by Miss 
Bronte, and far superior to anything that fell to the lot 
of Miss Austen. Johnson seems also to have regarded 
her with personal affection. He had a tender interview 
with her shortly before his death ; he begged her with 
solemn energy to remember him in her prayers; he 
apologized pathetically for being unable to see her, aS; 
his weakness increased; and sent her tender messagesi 
from his deathbed. 

As the end drew near, Johnson accepted the inevitable! 
like a man. After spending most of the latter months of 
1784 in the country with the friends who, after the loss oi\ 
the Thrales, could give him most domestic comfort, he came 
back to London to die. He made his will, and settled si 
few matters of business, and was pleased to be told thai 
he would be buried in Westminster Abbey. He uttereq 
a few words of solemn advice to those who came neai 
him, and took affecting leave of his friends. Langton 
so warmly loved, was in close attendance. Johnson saic 
to him tenderly, Te teneam moriens deficiente manu 
Windham broke from political occupations to sit by th 
dying man ; once Langton found Burke sitting by hi 
bedside with three or four friends. " I am afraid," sai« 
Burke, " that so many of us must be oppressive to you. 
*' No, sir, it is not so," replied Johnson, '' and I must b 



v.] THE CLOSING YEARS OF JOHNSOK'S LIFE. 165 

in a wretclied state indeed when your company would 
not be a delight to me." "My dear sir," said Burke, 
with a breaking voice, " you have always been too good 
to me ;" and parted from his old friend for the last time. 
Of Eeynolds, he begged three things : to forgive a debt of 
thirty pounds, to read the Bible, and never to paint on 
Sundays. A few flashes of the old humour broke through. 
He said of a man who sat up with him : ** Sir, the 
fellow's an idiot ; he's as awkward as a turnspit when 
first put into the wheel, and as sleepy as a dormouse," 
His last recorded words were to a young lady who had 
begged for his blessing: "God bless you, my dear." 
The same day, December 13th, 1784, he gradually 
sank and died peacefully. He was laid in the Abbey 
by the side of Goldsmith, and the playful prediction has 
been amply fulfilled : — 

Forsitan et nostrum nomen miscebitur istis. 

The names of many greater writers are inscribed upon 
the walls of Westminster Abbey ; but scarcely any one 
lies there whose heart was more acutely responsive during 
life to the deepest and tenderest of human emotions. 
In visiting that strange gathering of departed heroes and 
pt statesmen and philanthropists and poets, there are many 
whose words and deeds have a far greater influence upon 
our imaginations; but there are very few whom, when 
all has been said, we can love so heartily as Samuel 
Johnson. 



bij 



166 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 



1 



CHAPTEE VI. 



Johnson's writings. 



It remains to speak of Johnson's position in literature. 
For reasons sufficiently obvious, few men whose lives 
have been devoted to letters for an equal period, have left 
behind them such scanty and inadequate remains. John- 
son, as we have seen, worked only under the pressure of j 
circumstances ; a very small proportion of his latter life j 
was devoted to literary employment. The working hours ' 
of his earlier years were spent for the most part in pro- i 
ductions which can hardly be called literary. Seven j 
years were devoted to the Dictionai-y, which, whatever its ( 
merits, could be a book only in the material sense of the ' 
word, and was of course destined to be soon superseded. 
Much of his hack-work has doubtless passed into oblivion, r 
and though the ordinary relic-worship has gathered o- 
together fragments enough to fill twelve decent octavo -. 
volumes (to which may be added the two volumes of , 
parliamentary reports), the part which can be called alive 
may be compressed into very moderate compass Johnson j. 
may be considered as a poet, an essayist, a pamphleteer, 
a traveller, a critic, and a biographer. Among his 
poems, the two imitations of Juvenal, especially the 
Vanity of Human Wishes, and a minor fragment or two, 
probably deserve more respect than would be concedeci: 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WHITINGS. 167 

to them by adherents of modern schools. His most 
ambitious work, Irene, can be read by men in whom a 
sense of duty has been abnormally developed. Among 
the two hundred and odd essays of the Rambler ^ there is 
a fair proportion which will deserve, but will hardly 
obtain, respectful attention, Easselas, one of the philo- 
sophical tales popular in the last century, gives the essence 
of much of the Bambler in a different form, and to these 
may be added the essay upon Soame Jenyns, which 
deals with the same absorbing question of human happi- 
ness. The political pamphlets, and the Journey to the 
Hebrides, have a certain historical interest; but are 
otherwise readable only in particular passages. Much of 
his criticism is pretty nearly obsolete; but the child 
of his old age — the Lives of the Poets —a book in which 
criticism and biography are combined, is an admirable 
performance in spite of serious defects. It is the work 
that best reflects his mind, and intelligent readers who 
have once made its acquaintance, will be apt to turn it 
into a familiar companion. 

If it is easy to assign the causes which limited the 

quantity of Johnson's work, it is more curious to inquire 

what was the quality which once gained for it so much 

authority, and which now seems to have so far lost its 

savour. The peculiar style which is associated with 

Johnson's name must count for something in both 

processes. The mannerism is strongly marked, and of 

course offensive ; for by " mannerism," as I understand 

\ the word, is meant the repetition of certain forms of 

i language in obedience to blind habit and without re- 

j ference to their propriety in the particular case. John- 

I son's sentences seem to be contorted, as his gigantic 

I limbs used to twitch, by a kind of mechanical spasmodic 



168 SAMUEL JOH^'SO^^ [chat. 

action. The most obvious peculiarity is the tendency 
which he noticed himself, to *'use tec. big ^onls and too 
many of them." He had to explain to Miss Eeynolds 
that the Shakesperian line, — 

You must borrow me Garagantua's month, 

had been appHed to him because he used " big words, 
which require the mouth of a giant to pronounce them." 
It was not, however, the mere bigness of the words 
that distinguished his style, but a pecuHar love of 
putting the abstract for the concrete, of using awkward 
inversions, and of balancing his sentences in a monotonous 
rhythm, which gives the appearance, as it sometimes 
corresponds to the leaUty, of elaborate logical discrimina- 
tion. With all its faults the style has the merits of 
masculine directness. The inversions are not such as to 
complicate the constructiom As Boswell remarks, he 
never uses a parenthesis ; and his style, though ponder- 
ous and wearisome, is as transparent as the smarter snip- 
snap of Macaulay. 

This singular mannerism appears in his earliest - 
writings ; it is most marked at the time of the E ambler ; 
whilst in the Lives of the Poets, although I think that 
the trick of inversion has become commoner, the other 
peculiarities liave been so far softened as (in my judgment, 
at least), to be ic offensive. It is perhaps needless to 
give examples of a tendency which marks almost every 
page of his writing. A passage or two from the BamUer 
may illustrate the quaHty of the style, and the oddity ot 
the' effect produced, when it is applied to topics of a, 
trivial kind. The author of the LarnhJer is supposed tc 
receive a remonstrance upon his excessive gravity fron | 
the lively Flirtilla, who wishes him to write in defence o 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WEITINGS. 169 

masquerades. Conscious of his own incapacity, he 
applies to a man of '^ high reputation in gay life ;" who, 
on the fifth perusal of Flirtilla's letter breaks into a 
rapture, and declares that he is ready to devote himself to 
her service. Here is part of the apostrophe put into the 
mouth of this brilliant rake. " Behold, Flirtilla, at thy 
feel a man grown gray in the study of those noble arts 
by which right and wrong may be confounded; by 
which reason may be blinded, when we have a mind to 
escape from her inspection, and caprice and appetite 
instated in uncontrolled command and boundless 
dominion ! Such a casuist may surely engage with 
certainty of success in vindication of an entertainment 
which in an Instant gives confidence to the timorous and 
kindles ardour in the cold, an entertaioment where the 
vigilance of jealousy has so often been clouded, and the 
virgin is set free from the necessity of languishing in 
I silence ; where all the outworks of chastity are at once 
I demolished ; where the heart is laid open without a 
blush ; where bashfulness may survive virtue, and no 
I wish is crushed under the frown of modesty." 

Here is another passage, in which Johnson is speaking 
I upon a topic more within his proper province; and which 
j contains sound sense under its weight of words. A 
jman, he says, who reads a printed book, is often con- 
jtented to be pleased without critical examination. " Eut," 
jhe adds, ''if the same man be called to consider the 
'jmerit of a production yet unpublished, he brings an 
Smagination heated with objections to passages which he 
'fias never yet heard; he invokes all the powers of 
otoicism, and stores his memory with Taste and Grace, 
't^urity and Delicacy, Manners and Unities, sounds which * 
>^|iaving been once uttered by those that understood 
8* 



170 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

them, have been since re-echoed without meaning, and 
kept up to the disturbance of the world by constant * 
repercussion from one coxcomb to another. He con- '] 
Siders himself as obliged to show by some proof of his j 
abilities, that he is not consulted to no purpose, and 
therefore watches every opening for objection, and looks 
round for every opportunity to propose some specious 
alteration. Such opportunities a very small degree of 
sagacity will enable him to find, for in every work of 
imagination, the disposition of parts, the insertion of 
incidents, and use of decorations may be varied in a 
thousand ways with equal propriety ; and, as in things 
nearly equal that will always seem best to every man 
which he himself produces, the critic, whose business | 
is only to propose without the care of execution, can ! 
never want the satisfaction of believing that he has i 
suggested very important improvements, nor the power i 
of enforcing his advice by arguments, which, as they t 
appear convincing to himself, either his kindness or his | 
vanity will press obstinately and importunately, without | 
suspicion that he may possibly judge too hastily in favour! 
of his own advice or inquiry whether the advantage of i 
the new scheme be proportionate to the labour.'* We may 
stiU notice a " repercussion" of words from one coxcomb 
to another; though somehow the words have been^: 
changed or translated. 

Johnson's style is characteristic of tlie individual and 
of the epoch. The preceding generation had exhibitcc^ 
the final triumph of common sense over the pedantry of a 
decaying scholasticism. The movements represented b) 
Locke's'phUosophy, by the rationalizing school in theology 
and by the so-called classicism of Pope and his foUowers 
are different phases of the same impulse. The quality 



k 



■"•] JOHNSON'S WEITINGS. 



171 



valued above aU others in philosophy, Uterature, and art 

[I was clear, bright, common sense. To expel the mystery 

[') which had served as a cloak for charlatans was the great 

"I aim of the time, and the method was to appeal from°the 

I professors of exploded technicalities to the judgment of 

' cultivated men of the world. Berkeley places his Utopia 

in happy climes, — 

Where nature guides, and virtue rules. 
Where men shall not impose for truth and sense 
The pedantry of courts and schools. 

Simplicity, clearness, directness are, therefore, the great 
virtues of thought and style. Berkeley, Addison, Pope, 
and Swift are the great models of such exceUence hi 
various departments of literature. 

In the succeeding generation we become aware of a 
certain leaven of dissatisfaction with the jesthetic and 
inteUectual code thus inherited. The supremacy of com- 
mon sense, the superlative importance of clearness, is still 
fully acknowledged, but there is a growing undertone of 
dissent in form and substance. Attempts are made to re- 
• : store philosophical conceptions assailed by Locke and his 
■ foUowers; the rationalism of the deistic or semi-deistic 
j writers is declared to be superficial; their optimistic theories 
disregard the dark side of nature, and provide no sufficient 
utterance for the sadness caused by the contemplation of 
human suffering ; and the polished monotony of Pope's 
11 verses begins to pall upon those who shaU tread in his 
iijsteps. Some daring sceptics are even inquiring whether 
Xjhe IS a poet at all. And simultaneously, though Addison 
! jis stiU a kind of sacred model, the best prose writers are 
:„!beginning to aim at a more complex structure of sentence, 
i,ifitted for the expression of a wider range of thought and" 
yfiemotion. 

M 



172 



SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap 



Johnson, though no conscious revolutionist, shares thia 
growing discontent. The Spectator is written in the lan- 
guage of the drawing-room and the coffee-house. Nothing 
is ever said which might not pass in conversation between ^ 
a couple of " wits," with, at most, some graceful indulgence ; 
in passing moods of solemn or tender sentiment. Johnson, | 
though devoted to society in his own way, was anything 
but a producer of smaU talk. Society meant to him an 
escape from the gloom which beset him whenever he was , 
abandoned to his thoughts. Neither his education nor , 
the manners acquired in Grub Street had qualified him toj 
be an observer of those lighter foibles which were touched I 
by Addison with so dexterous a hajid. When he ven- 
tures upon such topics he flounders dreadfuUy, and ratherj 
reminds us of an artist who should attempt to paint| 
miniatures with a mop. No man, indeed, took more off 
interest in what is caUed the science of human nature ;| 
and, when roused by the stimulus of argument, he could; 
talk, as has been shown, with almost unrivaUed vigoui 
and'point. But his favourite topics are the deeper springy 
of character, rather than superficial peculiarities ; and hi^ 
vigorous sayings are concentrated essence of strong sens^ 
and deep feeling, not dainty epigrams or graceful embodi 
ments of delicate observation. Johnson was not, likj 
some contemporary antiquarians, a systematic student ofth^' 
English literature of the preceding centuries, but he ha^ 
a strong affection for some of its chief masterpieces Bui^ 
ton's Anatomy of Melancholy was, he declared, the onlf 
book which ever got him out of bed two hours soone 
than he wished. Sir Thomas Browne was another coi 
genial writer, who is supposed to have had some influent 
upon his style. He never seems to have directly imitate^! 
any one, though some nonsense has been talked about h 






vi.j JOHNSON'S WEITINGS. US 

^^ forming a style ;" but it is probable that he felt a closer 
affinity to those old scholars, with their elaborate and 
ornate language and their deep and solemn tone of senti- 
ment, than to the brilliant but comparatively superficial 
writers of Queen Anne's time. He was, one may say, a 
scholar of the old type, forced by circumstances upon the 
world, but always retaining a sympathy for the scholar's 
life and temper. Accordingly, his style acquired some- 
thing of the old elaboration, though the attempt to con- 
form to the canons of a later age renders the structure dis- 
agreeably monotonous. His tendency to pomposity is not 
redeemed by the naivete and spontaneity of his masters. 

The inferiority of Johnson's written to his spoken 
utterances is indicative of his divided life. There are 
moments at which his writing takes the terse, vigorous 
tone of his talk. In his letters, such as those to Chester- 
field and Macpherson and in occasional passages of his 
pamphlets, we see that he could be pithy enough when he 
chose to descend from his Latinized abstractions to good 
concrete English ; but that is only when he becomes ex- 
;| cited. His face when in repose, we are told, appeared to 
J be almost imbecile ; he was constantly sunk in reveries, 
[I from which he was only roused by a challenge to conver- 
j sation. In his writings, for the most part, we seem to be 
j listening to the reverie rather than the talk ; we are over- 
j hearing a soliloquy in his study, not a vigorous discussion 
jl over the twentieth cup of tea ; he is not fairly put upon 
,i his mettle, and is content to expound without enforcing. 
5! We seem to see a man, heavy-eyed, ponderous in his 
pj gestures, like some huge mechanism which grinds out a 
j ponderous tissue of verbiage as heavy as it is certainly 
.| solid. 
J The substance correspond^ to the style. Johnson haf 



1V4 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [ciiAfe 

something iu common with the fashionable pessimism of 
modern times. No sentimentalist of to-day could be more 
convinced that life is in the main miserable. It was his 
favourite theory, according to Mrs. Thrale, that all human 
action was prompted by the " vacuity of life." Men act 
solely in the hope of escaping from themselves. Evil, as 
a follower of Schopenhauer would assert, is the positive, 
and good merely the negative of evil. All desire is at 
bottom an attempt to escape from pain. The doctrine ] 
neither resulted from, nor generated, a philosophical theory I 
in Johnson's case, and was in the main a generaliza- I 
lion of his own experience. N^ot the less, the aim of ^ 
most of his writing is to express this sentiment in one 
form or other. He differs, indeed, from most modern i 
sentimentalists, in having the most hearty contempt for : 
useless whining. If he dwells upon human misery, it is '" 
because he feels that it is as futile to join with the opti- 
mist in ignoring, as Avith the pessimist in howling over ; 
the evil. We are in a sad world, full of pain, but 
we have to make the best of it. Stubborn patience andj 
hard work are the sole remedies, or rather the solo' 
means of temporary escape. Much of the Rambler is 
occupied with variations upon this theme, and expresses ■ 
the kind of dogged resolution with which he woukl havei 
us plod through this weary world. Take for example 
this passage : — '^ The controversy about the reality of 
external evils is now at an end. That life has many 
miseries, and that those miseries are sometimes at leastl 
equal to all the powers of fortitude is now universally 
confessed ; and, therefore, it is useful to consider not only 
how we may escape them, but by what means those 
which either the accidents ^f affairs or the infirmities if*) 
.f nature must bring upon us may be mitigated andlil, 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WKITINGS. 116 

lightened, and how we may make those hours less wretched 
which the condition of our present existence will not 
allow to be very happy. 

" The cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not 
radical, but palliative. Infelicity is involved in corporeal 
nature, and interwoven with our being; all attempts, 
therefore, to decline it wholly are useless and vain ; the 
armies of pain send their arrows against us on every side, 
the choice is only between those which are more or less 
sharp, or tinged with poison of greater or less malignity ; 
and the strongest armour which reason can supply will 
only blunt their points, but cannot repel them. 

" The great remedy which Heaven has put in our hands 
is patience, by which, though we cannot lessen the tor- 
ments of the body, we can in a great measure preserve 
the peace of the mind, and shall suffer only the natural 
and genuine force of an evil, without heightening its 
acrimony or prolonging its effects." 

It is hardly desirable for a moralist to aim at originality 
in his precepts. "We must be content if he enforces old 
I truths in such a manner as to convince us of the depth 
li and sincerity of his feeling. Johnson, it must be con- 
H fessed, rather abuses the moralist's privilege of being 
I commonplace. He descants not unfrequently upon pro- 
! positions so trite that even the most earnest enforcement 
can give them little interest. With all drawbacks, how- 
ever, the moralizing is the best part of the Ramhler. 
J Many of the papers follow the precedent set by Addison 
"in the Spectator^ but without Addison's felicity. Like 
^j Addison, he indulges in allegory, which, in his hands, 
i\ becomes unendurably frigid and clumsy ; he tries light* 
ij social satire, and is fain to confess that we can spy a 
Ibeard under the muffler of his feminine characters; he 



176 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

treats ua to criticism Avhich, like Addison^s, goes upon 
exploded principles, but unlike Addison's, is apt to be 
almost wilfully outrageous. His odd remarks upon 
Milton's versification are the worst examp\e of this weak- ] 
ness. The result is what one might xpect from the | 
attempt of a writer without an ear to sit in judgment ; 
upon the greatest master of harmony in the language. 

These defects have consigned the RamUer to the | 

dustiest shelves of libraries, and account for the wonder , 

expressed by such a critic as M, Taine at the English ) 

love of Johnson. Certainly if that love were nourished, | 

as he seems to fancy, by assiduous study of the Rambler^ i 

it would be a curious phenomenon. And yet with all , 

its faults, the reader who can plod through its pages | 

will at least feel respect for the author. It is not; 

unworthy of the man whose great lesson is "clear your i 

mind of cant f ^ who felt most deeply the misery of thej 

world, but from the bottom of his heart despised! 

querulous and sentimental complaints on one side, and 

optimist glasses upon the other. To him, as to some others! 

of his temperament, the affectation of looking at the 

bright side of things seems to have presented itself as the 

bitterest of mockeries; and nothing would tempt hin^ 

to let fine words pass themselves off for genuine senscj 

Here are some remarks upon the vanity in which som( 

authors seek for consolation, which may illustrate thi{ 

^ Of this well-known sentiment it maybe said, as of someothe 
familiar quotations, that its direct meaning has been slightl 
modified in use. The empliasis is changed. Johnson's word 
were " Clear your wind of cant. You may talk as other people do 
you may say to a man, sir, I am your humble servant ; you are m 
Ms most humblo servant. . . . You may ^aZ/c in this manner 
it is a mode of talking in society ; but don't think foolishly.'' 



n.] JOHNSON'S WRITINGS. Ill 

love of realities and conclude our quotations from the 
Rambler. 

" By such acts of voluntary delusion does every man 
endeavour to conceal his own unimportance from himself. 
It is long before we are convinced of the small propor- 
tion which every individual bears to the collective body 
of mankind ; or learn how few can be interested in the 
fortuue of any single man ; how little vacancy is left in 
the world for any new object of attention ; to how small 
extent the brightest blaze of merit can be spread amidst 
the mists of business and of folly ; and how soon it is 
clouded by the intervention of other novelties. ]^ot 
only the writer of books, but the commander of armies, 
and the deliverer of nations, wall easily outlive all noisy 
and popular reputation : he may be celebrated for a time 
by the public voice, but his actions and his name will 
soon be considered as remote and unaffecting, and be rarely 
mentioned but by those whose alliance gives them some 
vanity to gratify by frequent commemoration. It seems 
not to be sufficiently considered how little renown can 
be admitted in the world. Mankind are kept perpetually 
busy by their fears or desires, and have not more 
leisure from their own affairs than to acquaint them- 
selves with the accidents of the current day. Engaged in 
contriving some refuge from calamity, or in shortening 
their way to some new possession, they seldom suffer their 
thoughts to wander to the past or f ature ; none but a few 
solitary students have leisure to inquire into the claims 
of ancient heroes or sages; and names which hoped to 
range over kingdoms and continents shrink at last into 
cloisters and colleges. JSTor is it certain that even of 
these dark and narrow habitations, these last retreats of 
feme, the possession will be long kept. Of men devoted 



178 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap, 

to literature very few extend their views beyond some 
particular science, and the greater part seldom inquire, even 
in their own profession, for any authors but thooe whom 
the present mode of study happens to force upon their 
notice ; they desire not to fill their minds with un- 
fashionable knowledge, but contentedly resign to oblivion 
those books which they now find censured or neglected." 

The most remarkable of Johnson's utterances upon 
his favourite topic of the Vanity of Human Wishes is 
the story of Rasselas, The plan of the book is simple, 
and recalls certain parts of Voltaire's simultaneous but 
incomparably more brilliant attack upon Optimism in 
Candide, There is supposed to be a happy valley in 
Abyssinia where the royal princes are confined in total 
seclusion, but with ample supplies for every conceivable 
want. Rasselas, who has been thus educated, becomes 
curious as to the outside world, and at last makes his 
escape with his sister, her attendant, and the ancient 
sage and poet, Imlac. Under Imlac's guidance they 
survey life and manners in various stations; they make 
the acquaintance of philosophers, statesmen, men of the 
world, and recluses ; they discuss the results of their 
experience pretty much in the style of the Rainhler ; 
they agi^ee to pronounce the sentence "Vanity of 
Vanities ! " and finally, in a " conclusion where nothing is 
concluded," they resolve to return to the happy valley. 
The book is little more than a set of essays upon life, 
with just story enough to hold it together. It is want- 
ing in those brilliant flashes of epigram, which illustrate 
Voltaire's pages so as to blind some readers to its real 
forcp of sentiment, and yet it leaves a peculiar and 
powerful impression upon the reader. 

The general tone may he collected from a few passages. 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WRITINGS. 179 

Here is a fragment, the conclusion of wliicli is perhaps 
the most familiar of quotations from Johnson's writings. 
Imlac in narrating his life describes his attempts to 
become a poet. 

" The business of a poet," said Imlac, " is to examine 
not the individual, but the species ; to remark general 
properties and large appearances; he does not number 
the streaks of the tulip or describe the different shades in 
the verdure of the forest. He is to exhibit in his 
portraits of nature such prominent and striking features 
as recall the original to every mind ; and must neglect 
the minute discriminations which one may have remarked, 
and another have neglected for those characteristics which 
are alike obvious to vigilance and carelessness." 

" But the knowledge of nature is only half the task of 
a poet ; he must be acquainted likewise with all the 
modes of life. His character requires that he estimate 
the happiness and misery of every condition ; observe the 
power of all the passions in all their combinations, and 
know the changes of the human mind as they are modified 
by various institutions, and accidental influences of 
climate or custom, from the sprightliness of infancy to 
the despondency of decrepitude. He must divest him- 
self of the prejudices of his age or country ; he must 
consider right and wrong in their abstracted and in- 
variable state; he must disregard present laws and 
opinions, and rise to general and transcendental truths, 
which will always be the same ; he must therefore content 
himseli with the slow progress of his name ; contemn the 
applause of his own time, and commit his claims to the 
justice of posterity. He must write as the interpreter 
of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider 
himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners 



180 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

of future generations, as a being superior to time and 
place. 

'' His labours are not yet at an end ; he must know 
many languages and many sciences ; and that his style 
may be worthy of his thoughts, must by incessant 
practice familiarize to himself every delicacy of speech 
and grace of harmony." 

Imlac now felt the enthusiastic fit and was proceeding 
to aggrandize his profession, when the prince cried out, 
*^ Enough, thou hast convinced me that no human being 
can ever be a poet." 

Indeed, Johnson's conception of poetry is not the 
one which is now fashionable, and which would rather 
seem to imply that philosophical power and moral sensi- 
bility are so far disqualifications to the true poet. 

Here, again, is a view of the superfine system of moral 
philosophy. A meeting of learned men is discussing the 
ever-recurring problem of happiness, and one of them 
speaks as follows : — 

** The way to be happy is to live according to nature, 
in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with 
which every heart is originally impressed ; which is not 
written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not 
instilled by education, but infused at our nativity. He 
that lives according to nature will suffer nothing from the 
delusions of hope, or importunities of desire ; he will 
receive and reject with equability of temper, and act or 
suffer as the reason of things shall alternately prescribe. 
Other men may amuse themselves with subtle definitions 
or intricate ratiocinations. Let him learn to be wise by 
easier means : let him observe the hind of the forest, and 
the linnet of the grove; let him consider the life of 



VI.] JOHNSOK'S WEITINGS. 181 

animals whose motions are regulated by instinct; they 
obey their guide and are happy. 

" Let us, therefore, at length cease to dispute, and learn 
to live ; throw away the incumbrance of precepts, which 
they who utter them with so much pride and pomp do 
not understand, and carry with us this simple and in- 
telligible maxim, that deviation from nature is deviation 
from happiness." 

The prince modestly inquires what is the precise 
meaning of the advice just given. 

" When I find young men so humble and so docile," 
said the philosopher, " I can deny them no information 
which my studies have enabled me to afford. To live 
according to nature, is to act always with due regard to 
the fitness arising from the relations and qualities of 
causes and effects, to concur with the great and unchange- 
able scheme of universal felicity ; to co-operate with the 
general disposition and tendency of the present system of 
things. 

" The prince soon found that this was one of the sages, 
whom he should understand less as he heard him longer." 

Here, finally, is a characteristic reflection upon the right 
mode of meeting sorrow. 

" The state of a mind oppressed with a sudden 
calamity," said Imlac, "is like that of the fabulous 
inhabitants of the new created earth, who, when the first 
night came upon them, supposed that day would never 
return. When the clouds of sorrow gather over as, we 
see nothing beyond them, nor can imagine how they will 
be dispelled ; yet a new day succeeded to the night, and 
sorrow is never long without a dawn of ease. But 
they who restrain themselves from receiving* comfort, do 



182 SA^IUEL JOHNSON. [cha*'. 

as the savages would have done, had they put out theii 
eyes when it was dark. Our minds, like oar bodies, are 
in continual flux ; something is hourly lost^ and some- 
thing acquired. To lose much at once is inconvenient to 
either, but while the vital powers remain uninjured, 
nature will find the means of reparation. 

" Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the 
eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, what- 
ever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that 
which we approach increasing in magnitude. Do not 
suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of 
motion; commit yourself again to the current of the 
world ; Pekuah will vanish by degrees ; you will meet in 
your way some other favourite, or learn to diffuse your- 
self in general conversation." 

In one respect BasseMs is curiously contrasted with 
Candide. Voltaire's story is aimed at the doctrine of 
theological optimism, and, whether that doctrine be well 
or ill understood, has therefore an openly sceptical ten- 
dency. Johnson, to whom nothing could be more abhor- 
rent than an alliance with any assailant of orthodoxy, 
draws no inference from his pessimism. He is content to 
state the fact of human misery without perplexing him- 
self with the resulting problem as to the final cause of 
human existence. K the question had been explicitly 
brought before him, he would, doubtless, have replied 
that the mystery was insoluble. To answer either in the 
sceptical or the optimistic sense was equally presumptuous 
Johnson's religious beliefs in fact were not such as to sug 
gest that kind of comfort which is to be obtained by explain 
ing away the existence of eviL If he, too, would have 
said that in some sense all must be for the best in a world 
ruled by a perfect Creator, the sense must be one which 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WRITINGS. 183 

would allow of the eternal misery of indefinite multitudes 
of his creatures. 

But, in truth, it was characteristic of Johnson to turn 
away his mind from such topics. He was interested in 
ethical speculations, hut on the practical side, in the 
application to life, not in the philosophy on which it 
might he grounded. In that direction he could see 
nothing hut a " milking of the bull " — a fruitless or 
rather a pernicious waste of intellect. An intense convic- 
tion of the supreme importance of a moral guidance in 
this difficult world, made him abhor any rash inquiries by 
which the basis of existing authority might be endangered^ 

This sentiment is involved in many of those prejudices 
which have been so much, and in some sense justifiably 
ridiculed. Man has been wretched and foolish since the 
race began, and will be till it ends ; one chorus of lamen- 
tation has ever been rising, in countless dialects but with 
a single meaning ; the plausible schemes of philosophers 
give no solution to the everlasting riddle ; the nostrums 
of politicians touch only the surface of the deeply-rooted 
evil ; it is folly to be querulous, and as silly to fancy that 
men are growing worse, as that they are much better than 
they used to be. The evils under which we suffer are 
not skin-deep, to be eradicated by changing the old phy- 
sicians for new quacks. What is to be done under such 
conditions, but to hold fast as vigorously as we can to the 
rules of life and faith which have served our ancestors, 
and which, whatever their justifications, are at least the 
only consolation, because they supply the only guidance 
through this labyrinth of troubles? Macaulay has ridi- 
culed Johnson for what he takes to be the ludicrous in- 
consistency of his intense political prejudice, combined 
with his assertion of the indifference of all forms of 



184 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap, 

government. " If," says Macaulay, " the difiiBrence be- 
tween two forms of government be not worth half a 
guinea, it is not easy to see how Whiggism can be viler 
than Toryism, or the Crown can have too little power." 
The answer is surely obvious. Whiggism is vile, 
according to the doctor's phrase, because Whiggism is a 
''negation of all principle;" it is in his view, not so 
much the preference of one form to another, as an attack 
upon the vital condition of all government. He called 
Burke a "bottomless Whig " in this sense, implying that 
Whiggism meant anarchy ; and in the next generation 
a good many people were led, rightly or wrongly, to agree 
with him by the experience of the French revolution. 

This dogged conservatism has both its value and its 
grotesque side. When Johnson came to write political 
pamphlets in his later years, and to deal with subjects 
little familiar to his mind, the results were grotesque 
enough. Loving authority, and holding one authority to 
be as good as another, he defended with uncompromising 
zeal the most preposterous and tyrannical measures. 
The pamphlets against the Wilkite agitators and the 
American rebels are little more than a huge " rhinoceros " 
snort of contempt against all who are fools enough or 
wicked enough to promote war and disturbance in order to 
change one form of authority for another. Here is a 
characteristic passage, giving his view of the value of 
such demonstrators : — 

" The progress of a petition is well known. An ejected 
placeman goes down to his county or his borough, tells 
his friends of his inability to seiTe them and his consti- 
tuents, cf the corruption of the government. His friends 
readily understated '^hat ^e who can get nothing, will have 
nothing to oivc Tbey ag^ee to proclaim a meeting. 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WRITINGS. 185 

Meat and drink are plentifully provided, a crowd is easily- 
brought together, and those who think that they know 
the reason of the meeting undertake to tell those who 
know it not. Ale and clamour unite their powers ; the 
crowd, condensed and heated, begins to ferment with the 
leaven of sedition. All see a thousand evils, though they 
cannot show them, and grow impatient for a remedy, 
though they know not what. 

*^ A speech is then made by the Cicero of the day ; he 
says much and suppresses more, and credit is equally 
given to what he tells and what he conceals. The petition 
is heard and universally approved. Those who are sober 
enough to write, add their names, and the rest would sign 
it if they could. 

" Every man goes home and tells his neighboui of the 
glories of the day ; how he was consulted, and what he 
advised ; how he was invited into the great room, where 
his lordship called him by his name ; how he was 
caressed by Sir Francis, Sir Joseph, and Sir George ; how 
he ate turtle and venison, and drank unanimity to the 
three brothers. 

"The poor loiterer, whose shop had confined him or 
whose wife had locked him up, hears the tale of luxury 
with envy, and at last inquires what was their petition. 
Of the petition nothing is remembered by the narrator, 
but that it spoke much of fears and apprehensions and 
something very alarming, but that he is sure it is against 
the government. 

''The other is convinced that it must be right, and 
wishes he had been there, for he loves wine and venison, 
and resolves as long as he lives to be against the government. 

" The petition is then handed from town to town, ^d 
from house to house ; and wherever it comes, the inha- 
9 



186 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap. 

bitants flock together that they may see that which must 
be sent to the king. ^NTames are easily collected. One 
man signs because he hates the papists ; another because 
he has vowed destruction to the turnpikes ; one because 
it will vex the parson ; another because he owes his land- 
lord nothing ; one because he is rich ^ another because he 
is poor; one to show that he is not afraid ; and another 
to show that he can write." 

The only writing in which we see a distinct reflection 
of Johnson's talk is the Lives of the Poets, The excellence 
of that book is of the same kind as the excellence of his 
conversation. Johnson wrote it under pressure, and it has 
sufi"ered from his characteristic indolence. Modern authors 
would fill as many pages as Johnson has filled lines, with 
the biographies of some of his heroes. By industriously 
sweeping together all the rubbi.sh which is in any way 
connected with the great man, by elaborately discussing 
the possible significance of infinitesimal bits of evidence, 
and by disquisition upon general principles or the whole 
mass of contemporary literature, it is easy to swell volumes 
to any desired extent. The result is sometimes highly 
interesting and valuable, as it is sometimes a new contri- 
bution to the dust-heaps j but in any case the design is 
something quite different from Johnson's. He has left 
much to be supplied and corrected by later scholars. His 
aim is simply to give a vigorous summary of the main 
facts of his heroes' lives, a pithy analysis of their cha- 
racter, and a short criticism of their productions. The 
strong sense which is everywhere displayed, the massive 
style, which is yet easier and less cumbrous than in his 
earlier work, and the uprightness and independence of 
the judgments, make the book agreeable even where we 
are most inclined to dissent from its conclusions. 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WEITINGS. 187 

The criticism is that of a school which has died out 
under the great reYolution of modern taste. The book- 
sellers decided that English poetry began for their pur- 
poses with Cowley, and Johnson has, therefore, nothing 
to say about some of the greatest names in our literatare. 
The loss is little to be regretted, since the biographical 
part of earlier memoirs must have been scanty, and the 
criticism inappreciative. Johnson, it may be said, like 
most of his contemporaries, considered poetry almost ex- 
clusively from the didactic and logical point of view. He 
always inquires what is the moral of a work of art. If he 
does not precisely ask " what it proves," he pays excessive 
attention to the logical solidity and coherence of its senti- 
ments. He condemns not oidy insincerity and affectation 
of feeling, but all such poetic imagery as does not cor- 
respond to the actual prosaic belief of the writer. For 
the purely musical effects of poetry he has little or nd 
feeling, and allows little deviation from the alternate long 
and short syllables neatly bound in Pope's couplets. 

To many readers this would imply that Johnson omits 
precisely the poetic element in poetry. I must be here 
content to say that in m}^ opinion it implies rather a 
limitation than a fundamental error. Johnson errs in 
supposing that his logical tests are at all adequate ; but it 
is, I think, a still greater error to assume that poetry has 
no connexion, because it has not this kind of connexion, 
with philosophy. His criticism has always a meaning, 
and in the case of works belonging to his own school a 
very sound meaning. When he is speaking of other 
poetry, we can only reply that his remarks may be true, 
but that they are not to the purpose. 

The remarks on the poetry of Dryden, Addison, and 
Pope are generally excellent, and always give the genuine 
N 



188 SAMUEL JOH^SO^. [chaf. 

expression of an independent judgment. Whoever thinks 
for himself, and says plainly what he thinks, has some 
merit as a critic. This, it is true, is about all that can be 
said for such criticism as that on Lycidas, which is a 
delicious example of the wrong way of applying strong 
sense to inappropriate topics. Nothing can be truer in 
a sense, and nothing less relevant. 

" In this poem," he says, " there is no nature, for there 
is no truth ; there is no art, for there is nothing new. Its 
form is that of a pastoral, easy, vulgar, and therefore dis- 
gusting; whatever images it can supply are easily ex- 
hausted, and its inherent improbability always forces 
dissatisfaction on the miud. When Cowley tells of 
Herv'ey that they studied together, it is easy to suppose 
how iiuch he must miss the companion of his labours and 
the partner of his discoveries ; but what image of tender- 
ness can be excited by these lines ? — 

We drove afield, and both together heard 
What time the gray fly winds her snltry horn, 
Battening onr flocks with the fresh dews of night. 

We know that they never drove a-field and had no flocks 
to batten; and though it be allowed that the represen- 
tation may be allegorical, the true meaning is so uncertain 
and remote that it is never sought, because it cannot be 
known when it is found. 

" Among the flocks and copses and flowers appear the 
heathen deities : Jove and Phoebus, Keptune and -^Eolus, 
with a long train of mythological imagery such as a college 
easily supplies. Xothing can less display knowledge or 
less exercise invention than to tell how a shepherd has 
lost liis companion, and must now feed his flocks alone, 
without any judge of his skUl in piping ; how one god 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WRITINGS. 189 

asks another god what has become of Lycidas, and neithei 
god can tell. He who thus grieves will excite no sym- 
pathy ; he who thus praises will confer no honour." 

This is of course utterly outrageous, and yet much of it 
is undeniably true. To explain why, in spite of truth, 
Lycidas is a wonderful poem, would be to go pretty deeply 
into the theory of poetic expression. Most critics prefer 
simply to shriek, being at any rate safe from the errors of 
independent judgment. 

The general effect of the book, however, is not to be 
inferred from this or some other passages of antiquated 
and eccentric criticism. It is the shrewd sense every- 
where cropping up which is really delightful. The iceen 
remarks upon life and character, though, perhaps, rather 
too severe in tone, are worthy of a vigorous mind, stored 
with much experience of many classes, and braced by 
constant exercise in the conversational arena. Passages 
everywhere abound which, though a little more formal in 
expression, have the forcible touch of his best conver- 
sational sallies. Some of the prejudices, which are ex- 
pressed more pithily in Boswell, are defended by a reasoned 
exposition in the Lives, Sentence is passed with the true 
judicial air ; and if he does not convince us of his com- 
plete impartiality, he at least bases his decisions upon 
solid and worthy grounds. It would be too much, for 
example, to expect that Johnson should sympathize with 
the grand republicanism of Milton, or pardon a man who 
defended the execution of the blessed Martyr. H© failed, 
therefore, to satisfy the ardent admirers of the great poet. 
Yet his judgment is. not harsh or ungenerous, but, at 
worst, the judgmeiit of a man striving to be just, in spite 
of some inevitable want of sympathy. 

The quality of Johnson's incidental re narks may be 



190 SAMUEL JOHNSON. [cfap. 

inferred from one or two brief extracts. Here is an 
observation which Johnson must have had many chances 
of verifying. Speaking of Dry den's money difficulties, he 
says, "It is well known that he seldom lives frugally who 
lives by chance. Ho]3e is always liberal, and they that 
trust her promises, make little scruple of revelling to-day 
on the profits of the morrow." 

Here is another shrewd comment upon the compliments 
paid to Halifax, of whom Pope says in the character of 
Bufo,— 

Fed with soft dedications all day long, 
Horace and be went hand and hand in song. 

•* To charge all unmerited praise with the guilt of flattery, 
or to suppose that the encomiast always Icnows and feels 
the falsehoods of his assertions, is surely to discover great 
ignorance of human nature and of human life. In deter- 
minations depending not on rules, but on reference and 
comparison, judgment is always in some degree subject 
to affection. Yery near to admiration is the wish to 
admire. 

" Every man willingly gives value to the praise which 
he receives, and considers the sentence passed in his favour 
as the sentence of discernment. We admire in a friend 
that understanding that selected us for confidence ; we 
admire more in a patron that bounty which, instead of 
scattering bounty indiscriminately, directed it to us ; and 
if the patron be an author, those performances which 
gratitude forbids us to blame, affection will easily dispose 
us to exalt. 

'* To these prejudices, hardly culpable, interest adds a 
power always operating, though not always, because not 
willingly, perceived. The modesty of praise gradually 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WHITINGS. 191 

wears away ; and, perhaps, the pride of patronage may be 
in time so increased that modest praise will no longer 
please. 

^'Many a blandishment was practised upon Halifax, 
which he would never have known had he no other at- 
tractions than those of his poetry, of which a short time 
has withered the beauties. It would now be esteemed no 
honour by a contributor to the monthly bundles of verses, 
to be told that, in strains either familiar oi solemn, he 
sino's like Halifax." 

I will venture to make a longer quotation from the life 
of Pope, which gives, I think, a good impression of his 
manner : — 

" Of his social qualities, if an estimate be made from 
his letters, an opinion too favourable cannot easily be 
formed ; they exhibit a perpetual and unclouded effulgence 
of general benevolence and particular fondness. There is 
nothing but liberality, gTatitude, constancy, and tender- 
ness. It has been so long said as to be commonly be- 
lieved, that the true characters of men may be found in 
their letters, and that he who writes to his friend lays his 
heart open before him. 

^' But the truth is, that such were the simple friend- 
ships of the Golden Age, and are now the friendships 
only of children. Yery few can boast of hearts which 
they dare lay open to themselves, and of which, by what- 
ever accident exposed, they do not shun a distinct and 
continued view ; and certainly what we hide from our- 
selves, we do not show to our friends. There is, indeed, 
no transaction which offers stronger temptations to fallacy 
an^ sophistication than epistolary intercourse. 

" In the eagerness of conversation, the first emotions* of 
the mind often burst out before they are considered. In 



192 SAMUEL JOHNSON [chap. 

the tumult of business, interest and passion ha^e their 
genuine effect ; but a friendly letter is a calm and deli- 
berate performance in the cool of leisure, in the stillness 
of solitude, and surely no man sits down by design to 
depreciate his own character. 

*' Friendship has no tendency to secure veracity ; for by 
whom can a man so much wish to be thoucrht better than 
he is, as by him w^iose kindness he desires to gain or 
keep 1 Even in w^riting to the Avorld there is less con- 
straint ; the author is not confronted with his reader, and 
takes his chance of approbation among the different dis- 
positions of mankind ; but a letter is addressed to a single 
mind, of which the prejudices and partialities are known, 
and must therefore please, if not by favouring them, by 
forbearing to oppose them. To charge those favourable 
representations which men give of their own minds, wuth 
the guilt of hypocritical falsehood, would show more 
severity than knowledge. The writer commonly believes 
himseK. Almost every man's thoughts while they are 
general are righf, and most hearts are pure while tempta- 
tion is away. It is easy to awaken generous sentiments 
in privacy; to despise death when there is no danger; to 
glow with benevolence when there is nothing to be given. 
While such ideas are formed they are felt, and self-love 
does not suspect the gleam of virtue to be the meteor of 
fancy. 

" If the letters of Pope are considered merely as com 
positions, they seem to be premeditated and artificial. It 
is one thing to write, because there is something which 
the mind wishes to discharge ; and another to solicit the 
imagination, because ceremony or vanity requires some- 
thing to be written. Pope confesses his early letters to 
be vitiated with affe.dation and amhition. To know 



VI.] JOHNSON'S WEITINGS. 193 

whetlier he disentangles himself from these perverters of 
epistolary integrity, his book and his life must he set in 
comparison. One of his favourite topics is contempt of 
his own poetry. For this, if it had been real, he would 
deserve no commendation ; and in this he was certainly 
not sincere, for his high value of himself was sufficiently 
observed ; and of what could he be proud but of his 
poetry? He writes, he says, when 'he has just nothing 
else to do,* yet Swift complains that he was never at 
leisure for conversation, because he *had always some 
poetical scheme in his head/ It was punctually required 
that his writing-box should be set upon his bed before he 
rose; and Lord Oxford's domestic related that, in the 
dreadful winter of '40, she was called from her bed by 
him four times in one night, to supply him with paper 
lest he should lose a thought. 

"He pretends insensibility to censure and criticism, 
though it was observed by all who knew him that every 
pamphlet disturbed his quiet, and that his extreme irrita- 
bility laid him open to perpetual vexation ; but he wished 
to despise his critics, and therefore hoped he did despise 
them. As he happened to live in two reigns when the 
court paid little attention to poetry, he nursed in his 
mind a foolish disesteem of kings, and proclaims that * he 
never sees courts.' Yet a little regard shown him by the 
Prince of Wales melted his obduracy; and he had not 
much to say when he was asked by his Eoyal Highness, 
* How he could love a prince while he disliked kings. ' " 

Johnson's best poetry is the versified expression of the 
tone of sentiment with which we are already familiar. 
The Vanity of Human Wishes is, perhaps, the finest 
poem written since Pope's time and in Pope's mannefr, 
with the exception of Goldsmith's still finer performances* 
9* 



19-i SAMUEL JOHNSON. [chap 

Johnson, it need hardly be said, has not Goldsmith's 
exquisite fineness of touch and delicacy of sentiment. He 
is often ponderous and verbose, and one feels that the 
mode of expression is not that which is most congenial ; 
and yet the vigour of thought makes itself felt through 
rather clumsy modes of utterance. Here is one of the 
best passages, in which he illustrates the vanity of mili- 
tary glory :— 

On what foundation stands the warrior's pride, 

How just his hopes let Swedish Charles decide j | 

A frame of adamant, a soul of fire, j 

No dangers fright him and no labours tire ; I 

O'er love, o'er fear, extends his wide domain, 

Unconquer'd lord of pleasure and of pain ; j 

No joys to him pacific sceptres yield, : 

War sounds the trump, he rushes to the field ; | 

Behold surrounding kings their powers combine, • '. 

And one capitulate, and one resign : 

Peace courts his hand, but spreads her charms in vain. | 

" Think nothing gain'd," he cries, " till nought remain ; • 1 

On Moscow's walls till Gothic standards fly, , 

And all be mine beneath the polar sky." i 

The march begins in military state, I 

And nations on his eye suspended wait ; i 

Stern Famine guards the solitary coast, 

And Winter barricades the realms of Frost. i 

He comes, nor want nor cold his course delay — j 

Hide, blushing glory, hide Pultowa's day ! ' 

The vanquish'd hero leaves his broken bands, 

And shows his miseries in distant lands ; 

Condemn'd a needy supplicant to wait, 

While ladies interpose and slaves debate — 

But did not Chance at length her error mend ? 

Did no subverted empire mark his end ? 

Did rival monarchs give the fatal wound ? 

Or hostile millions press him to the ground ? 

His fall was destined to a barren strand, 

A petty fortress and a dubious hand -• 



yn.] JOHNSON'S WBITINGS. 195 

He left the name at whicli the world grew pale, 
To point a moral and adorn a tale. 

The concluding piissage may also fitly conclude this 
survey of Jolmson's writings. The sentiment is less 
gloomy than is UvSual, but it gives the answer which he 
would have given in his calmer moods to the perplexed 
riddle of life ; a'nd, in some form or other, it is, perhaps, 
the best or the only answer that can be given : — . 

Where, then, shall Hope and Fear their objects find P 

Must dull suspense corrupt the stagnant mind ? 

Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, 

Eoll darkling down the torrent of his fate ? 

Must no dislike alarm, no wishes rise ? 

No cries invoke the mercies of the skies ? 

Inquirer cease ; petitions yet remain 

Which Heaven may hear, nor deem religion vain; 

Still raise for good the supplicating voice, 

But leave to Heaven the measure and the choice 

Safe in His power whose eyes discern afar 

The secret ambush of a specious prayer. 

Implore His aid, in His decisions rest. 

Secure whatever He gives— He gives the best. 

Yet when the scene of sacred presence fires, 

And strong devotion to tbe skies aspires. 

Pour forth thy fervours for a healthful mind, 

Obedient passions and a will resigned ; 

For LOve, which scarce collective men can fill ; 

For Patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill ; 

For Faith, that panting for a happier seat, 

Counts Death kind nature's signal of retreat. 

These goods for man the laws of Heaven ordain, 

These goods He grants who gTants the power to gain ; 

With these Celestial Wisdom calms the mind, 

And makes the happiness she does not find. 



THE END. 



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